Sexual Edumacation

Couple demonstrating "sexual gateway activity"

Breaking news from my time machine that travels back to one week ago...

Reports Jezebel:  
Yesterday, the Ohio House Finance Committee's Republican members voted to adopt a state budget amendment that mandates an abstinence-only approach to sexual education....The idiotic measure will "prohibit the teaching of sexual education coursework that endorses non-abstinence as an acceptable behavior or promotes sexual gateway activity." "Sexual Gateway Activity" — what's that?: 

ORC 2907.01(B) “Sexual contact” means any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast, for the purpose of sexually arousing or gratifying either person.

In addition, teachers can't distribute contraceptives at school, because nothing keeps a teen not pregnant more than not giving them condoms.

***
So I want to be all mad about this, but not only am I far too aroused by the erotic writing of ORC 2907.01(B) to think straight, but the part of my brain that gets mad at people for being stupid does not want to become engaged with this.  Especially the thought that spawns of these Ohioans, made sexually ignorant by their mandated sex-free sex ed, will predictably--yawn--fuck incorrectly and poorly, but not poorly enough to prevent unwanted pregnancy, thus producing even more of their kind. And so on and so on.

Nope, I'm gonna look the other way today. To good things happening in sex education, which I would define as sex ed that provides, you know, education. (This does not include my own 1970's sex ed in Georgia which was taught by the gym teacher and involved lots of talk of vas deferens. I learned nothing about real sex. The whole good part--attraction, arousal, or hell, even a basic how-to--was dismissed with a vague reference to "the sperm meeting the egg.")

So, yes, good sex ed, like:

1.  The adult sex ed classes offered in San Francisco by Kink.com. They feature real life people demonstrating real life sex, orgasms and whatnot for the class.  

Writes Tracy Clark-Flory in My X-Rated Sex Ed Class:

It isn’t just a live sex show, though. Before any pants were removed, [instructor Madison] Young passed around a diagram of the g-spot, reviewed the anatomy, dispelled myths about female ejaculation and goaded the audience members into talking about how they liked to be touched. Then she whipped out a speculum and brought her model Ava, or “stunt pussy,” up to the front of the room. In went the clear plastic device and then Ava began to stimulate herself with a Hitachi Magic Wand in an attempt at making her g-spot swell and become more visible.

.....My mind was blown by this sex-ed class even before the squirting began — but that was plenty mind-blowing on its own. Ava got up on the table in front of the class, spread her legs and began stimulating herself with a Hitachi and a stainless steel g-spot stimulator. Young explained what we were about to see: “It’s the release of all the juicy fluid that’s building up in the para-urethral sponge … and then it pushes forth through the urethra.” Young answered audience questions over the buzzing of the toy and Ava’s growing moans. And then there was a sudden burst of clear ejaculate that splattered inches from my feet.

After a vigorous demonstration of hand techniques on a melon, Clark-Flory leaves not only with an unsettling image of Gallagher, but the realization that there is still so much to learn about our bodies.

...Even having grown up in hippie-dippie Berkeley, Calif., having attended a feminist-minded women’s college, having read about hand-mirror-toting consciousness raising circles, having ended up reporting on sex for a living, I had never clearly seen what the vaginal walls actually look like — at least not outside of an illustrated diagram. I tell you, it was a revelation: I wanted to hightail it to the nearest Good Vibrations and buy my very own speculum — and one for each of my ladyparts-having friends. It made me angry that all those times I’ve had a gynecologist uncomfortably perched between my legs, they’ve never offered to hold up a mirror.

2. Meanwhile, the French, who continue to do, well, life, better than the rest of us, offer their postpartum women free classes in la rééducation périnéale, or reeducating the listless post-baby pelvic floor muscles so that they can actually work again. The classes include biofeedback and a coach to help teach proper Kegel techniques.

Writes Claire Lundberg in  The French Government Wants to Tone My Vagina:

Despite the occasional embarrassment, these sessions actually work. There haven’t been extensive studies done, but what studies exist show that la rééducation significantly reduces incontinence and pelvic pain at nine months after giving birth. Frankly, I’m happy there’s a medical professional paying attention to what happened down there. Rééducation périnéale gets scoffed at in American and Canadian publications as one of the most lurid examples of the indulgent French welfare state, but as far as I can tell, we do exactly nothing in the United States to help women get back into shape after giving birth.

An American woman gets her six-week postpartum checkup and, if nothing is seriously wrong, she’s cleared to have sex again and sent on her way. If she’s lucky, the doctor or midwife reminds her to do her Kegel exercises, but without much guidance. Meanwhile, at least in the experience of many of my friends, she may still be experiencing a variety of symptoms that, while not medically serious, sure are annoying, embarrassing, and strange, and not at all conducive to reinvigorating her sex life. Elective “vaginal rejuvenation” through plastic surgery is on the rise in the U.S., though this surgical reconstruction is largely aesthetic and pays little or no attention to returning sensation or control to the woman. Americans’ lack of attention to the female body after giving birth is our own version of the modesty gown or the word vajayjay; we’re covering our eyes and pretending there’s nothing there to see, until it can no longer be ignored.

So yeah, there is good stuff happening. Just not right now, or last week for that matter, in Ohio.

xoxox
jill

(photo via Lady Cheeky)