Listen up girls AND boys...
As I mentioned in my post from last week I received a mish-mash of sex education depending on the state where I lived. I went through middle school in San Antonio, Texas where abstinence-only education was taught. What I remember of that sex education experience is one or two days dedicated to more scientific "where do babies come from?" teaching. No discussion was started about us, the students, actually having or thinking about having sex. At the same time I grew up in the Catholic Church where sex education classes meant teaching the value of sex in marriage. There sex was mired in mystery. It was something you couldn't do so there wasn't much to learn about it. I learned about contraception when I moved to Massachusetts and attended high school. There condom use was discussed but the phrase "But the only way to be 100 percent sure is to be abstinent" was repeatedly used. The sex-ed classes were co-ed however I remember one string of classes where we watched "Fifteen and Pregnant," a mini-series starring a young Kirsten Dunst, as well as live birth videos. During that time the message seemed to be "here is the consequence of having sex" and that message was clearly geared toward the young women in the class. I was reminded of this experience after reading Valenti's criticism of the virginity movements emphasis on young woman as gate keepers of sexuality and the idea that since "women aren't as prone to what these [abstinence-only] texts describe as 'practical enslavement to one's sexual drive' as men are, it's the girls' job to keep the boys at bay" (Valenti 107). Add on top of that graphic pictures of STIs and you have a perfect fear cocktail to keep students from asking questions about actually protecting themselves and how to make healthy decisions.
I think that, first off, the elimination of fear tactics within sex education is needed. When has fear ever been a positive tool in the educational environment? Plus, isn't telling a young adult NOT to do something almost begging the young adult to qualify the demand with DOING that forbidden something? Abstinence-only education and the virginity movement are talking not toward young adults but to those rascal teenagers, those meddling kids that don't know what's good for them. Our kids aren't becoming adults because we're not treating or teaching them like they are adults. This leads to the second priority for sex-ed: teaching sexual responsibility. Sexual development is both physically apparent as well as socially apparent in adolescents. Ignoring the fact that America's high schools are filled with beings attempting to define their sexuality is just as crazy as saying that the HPV vaccine will turn women into sex-frenzied animals. Today's young adults should be treated as such, with sexual education classes that provide accurate information about STIs and contraception and that place sexual responsibility on both sexes. After all, "young people deserve accurate and comprehensive sex education not just because they're going to have sex, but because there's nothing wrong with having sex" (Valenti 120).
But dishing out sexual responsibility equally not only means teaching both young men and women about birth control and condom use but also about violence against women, about what is sex and what isn't. As Valenti writes, for too long the virginity movement has propagated violence against women by identifying the only perfect virgin as white, listless and chaste. Every woman that falls outside of that category (i.e. women of color, sexually active young women) is abandoned in very dangerous territory where laws accuse victims of sexual assault and rape instead of forming justice. Woman who are not "pure" according to the virginity movement's definition, who are out late drinking in bars or have sex outside of marriage, are "asking for it" by acting without agency and responsibility (Valenti 150). This line of thinking is obviously flawed. I like how Valenti puts it:
In the world of the virginity movement staying safe as a woman means staying inside the kitchen baking cookies and waiting for your knight in shining armor husband to come around. Any action outside of that subservient role and, duh, of course you're going to get raped. That's what happens to bad girls. But where are our society's men in this conversation? Are we seriously saying that rape and sexual violence is just 'guys being guys' taken to the extreme. Is rape just an extension of the "enslavement to one's sexual drive" that abstinence-only teachers use to justify woman's increased "responsibility" (read, passivity here) in a sexual relationship? The answer, is no, no, NO. Men have a definite role in the sex conversation and it's not about their roles as sexual aggressors and protectors who can make better decisions about women's sexuality than women themselves, the male archetype illustrated by the virginity movement. Rather, a good dose of "a day in a woman's shoes" is needed. But as Valenti points out in Chapter 8 Beyond Manliness we live in a culture that does everything to prevent men from associating or feeling anything designated as female. To be manly means to be not be anything remotely woman (Valenti 168). Therefore the opposite of female's supposed passive sexuality, a sexuality in the wrong when in action, is the male sexuality, "automatically positioned as aggressive and right - no matter what form it takes" (Valenti 172). Boys learn from the get-go that they have to convince girls into sexual activity. Often underlying this model, though, is a seduction that morphs into coercion (Valenti 173).
How can we combat sexual violence in this sort of environment? As much as we have a responsibility to teach our daughters respect and sexual responsibility so too we have a responsibility to teach our sons the same message. Feminism is not about leaving men to the side in the fight to make women's issues heard. Rather it is to incorporate them into the discussion and create equality, to create humanity instead of just 'mankind.' This means deconstructing gender roles from decorating a baby boy's bedroom in yellow instead of the gender-loaded blue to seeing the women in his life "as more than just the sum of our sexual parts: not as virgins or whores, as mothers or girlfriends, or as existing only in relation to men, but as people with independent desires, hopes, and abilities" (Valenti 183). Boys should learn about the female body and the process of childbirth. They should know how birth control pills work and that knowing a woman means not just seeing her naked but seeing her doing something that makes her happy, knowing her dreams and her passions. This in turn becomes about more than sexuality, it becomes about being human. I'd like to end with the Robert Jensen quote Valenti uses to wrap up her chapter on manliness, one that challenges men to either "settle for being men, or we can strive to be human beings" (Valenti 183).
I think that, first off, the elimination of fear tactics within sex education is needed. When has fear ever been a positive tool in the educational environment? Plus, isn't telling a young adult NOT to do something almost begging the young adult to qualify the demand with DOING that forbidden something? Abstinence-only education and the virginity movement are talking not toward young adults but to those rascal teenagers, those meddling kids that don't know what's good for them. Our kids aren't becoming adults because we're not treating or teaching them like they are adults. This leads to the second priority for sex-ed: teaching sexual responsibility. Sexual development is both physically apparent as well as socially apparent in adolescents. Ignoring the fact that America's high schools are filled with beings attempting to define their sexuality is just as crazy as saying that the HPV vaccine will turn women into sex-frenzied animals. Today's young adults should be treated as such, with sexual education classes that provide accurate information about STIs and contraception and that place sexual responsibility on both sexes. After all, "young people deserve accurate and comprehensive sex education not just because they're going to have sex, but because there's nothing wrong with having sex" (Valenti 120).
But dishing out sexual responsibility equally not only means teaching both young men and women about birth control and condom use but also about violence against women, about what is sex and what isn't. As Valenti writes, for too long the virginity movement has propagated violence against women by identifying the only perfect virgin as white, listless and chaste. Every woman that falls outside of that category (i.e. women of color, sexually active young women) is abandoned in very dangerous territory where laws accuse victims of sexual assault and rape instead of forming justice. Woman who are not "pure" according to the virginity movement's definition, who are out late drinking in bars or have sex outside of marriage, are "asking for it" by acting without agency and responsibility (Valenti 150). This line of thinking is obviously flawed. I like how Valenti puts it:
"...being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don't get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren't careful enough. Women get raped because someone raped them" (Valenti 151).
In the world of the virginity movement staying safe as a woman means staying inside the kitchen baking cookies and waiting for your knight in shining armor husband to come around. Any action outside of that subservient role and, duh, of course you're going to get raped. That's what happens to bad girls. But where are our society's men in this conversation? Are we seriously saying that rape and sexual violence is just 'guys being guys' taken to the extreme. Is rape just an extension of the "enslavement to one's sexual drive" that abstinence-only teachers use to justify woman's increased "responsibility" (read, passivity here) in a sexual relationship? The answer, is no, no, NO. Men have a definite role in the sex conversation and it's not about their roles as sexual aggressors and protectors who can make better decisions about women's sexuality than women themselves, the male archetype illustrated by the virginity movement. Rather, a good dose of "a day in a woman's shoes" is needed. But as Valenti points out in Chapter 8 Beyond Manliness we live in a culture that does everything to prevent men from associating or feeling anything designated as female. To be manly means to be not be anything remotely woman (Valenti 168). Therefore the opposite of female's supposed passive sexuality, a sexuality in the wrong when in action, is the male sexuality, "automatically positioned as aggressive and right - no matter what form it takes" (Valenti 172). Boys learn from the get-go that they have to convince girls into sexual activity. Often underlying this model, though, is a seduction that morphs into coercion (Valenti 173).
How can we combat sexual violence in this sort of environment? As much as we have a responsibility to teach our daughters respect and sexual responsibility so too we have a responsibility to teach our sons the same message. Feminism is not about leaving men to the side in the fight to make women's issues heard. Rather it is to incorporate them into the discussion and create equality, to create humanity instead of just 'mankind.' This means deconstructing gender roles from decorating a baby boy's bedroom in yellow instead of the gender-loaded blue to seeing the women in his life "as more than just the sum of our sexual parts: not as virgins or whores, as mothers or girlfriends, or as existing only in relation to men, but as people with independent desires, hopes, and abilities" (Valenti 183). Boys should learn about the female body and the process of childbirth. They should know how birth control pills work and that knowing a woman means not just seeing her naked but seeing her doing something that makes her happy, knowing her dreams and her passions. This in turn becomes about more than sexuality, it becomes about being human. I'd like to end with the Robert Jensen quote Valenti uses to wrap up her chapter on manliness, one that challenges men to either "settle for being men, or we can strive to be human beings" (Valenti 183).
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