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This past Saturday I and other Ohio activists met in Columbus for the Ohio Youth Summit hosted by Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Ohio, NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio Foundation, Equality Ohio and the Ohio Advocates.
It was a great opportunity for young people across the state to come together and discuss issues of comprehensive sex education. The summit included sessions on online advocacy, campus organizing, community organizing, and example sessions of what a Comprehensive Sex Education classroom curriculum would look like.
This last part was most interesting to me. As a person who went to Catholic school my whole life I was excited to see how fantastically inclusive and educational a comprehensive sex education class would be.
Overall the information I saw was pretty positive. When Planned Parenthood presented they tried not to focus on heterosexual relationships by using gender neutral language and the youth were given concrete information on how to keep themselves safe.
At one point the facilitator had us do an exercise where we had to go and shake hands with 3 different people to symbolize engaging in sexual activity with those people. Then we all sat down and she had 10 people stand up and let us know that for purposes of the activity they all have an STI. Then all the people who had "sexual contact" with them stood up, and the people who had sexual contact with them stood up etc until the whole room was standing.
Then the facilitator had us turn over our paper to find a letter on the back
- A stood for "Abstinence"- The people with that letter could sit down because they chose not to have sex and were not at risk for getting an STI
- F stood for "Fooled Around"- These people chose not to engage in sex but still got to enjoy their sexuality, and they could sit down because they were not at risk for getting an STI
- S stood for "Safe Sex"- The facilitator told us that these people used condoms when engaging in anal, oral, and vaginal sex and they could sit down because they chose to keep it safe
- People with no letter did not use any protection- And they were supposed to represent those people who were at a risk for catching that STI
It was an interesting exercise and I think it got across the point that when you engage in sexual activity you are in a sense having sex with all the people that your partner had sex with, but there are measures you can take to reduce your risk of contracting an STI.
While the message came across just fine, I couldn't help but think that this message had nothing to do with me. The way the facilitator divided the levels of safe sex I had no idea where I fit. When I as a female-bodied person have sex with other female-bodied people how much risk am I putting myself in?
My sex is not included in her categories of abstinence, fooled around, safe sex (condom use in anal, oral and vaginal) or unsafe sex.
The facilitator never defined what any of these categories actually meant and I had no idea where I fit. Luckily I have educated myself and I know how to protect myself when I engage in sexual activity. But this is the curriculum that is used in schools, and all those young kids in schools may not have access to the education I have received.
If I were a 15 year old female-bodied baby queer, I would have been so confused and way too shy to ask questions.
According to the terminology this facilitator used I was probably fooling around, doing something that put me at no risk for contracting an STI. Which is first of all not necessarily true, and second of all really demeaning. The media tells us all the time that you can't have sex without a penis present. People act like my sex isn't real, just foreplay, and my friends insist that I am a virgin. This sort of information comes at me from all angles, you would think that in a comprehensive sex education classroom I shouldn't encounter these same attitudes.
The first step towards ensuring that all people receive truly comprehensive sex education is agreeing on a universal language.
So what is the correct word for it? Lesbian sex? Fingering? Finger-fucking? Digital Penetration? Women who have sex with women (WSW)? Fucking? Manual Stimulation? Digital sex? Petting? Mutual Masturbation?
What is the "politically correct" term for sex between two female-bodied people? Or for that matter what is the politically correct term for that same act among any people gay or straight?
After the session I went up and spoke to the facilitator explaining that I felt left out of this discussion, I felt that my questions and concerns about my own sexual health were not being answered. Luckily everyone at this Summit were people who were truly committed to comprehensive sex education, and the facilitator said she would like to work with me to come up with a way to make her program more inclusive of queer women.
So hopefully we are on the road to making sure that the comprehensive sex education out there is truly comprehensive.
You have absolutely no idea how many times people have asked me, "What qualifies as sex for you?" or "How do you know when you lose your virginity?" And it really annoys me, every single time.