Abortion Rates Drop in New Mexico Too Hawaii has the highest drop in abortion rates in the US (30%, as I reported last week), but New Mexico has the second highest drop at 22%. All of the groups are claiming responsibility for the drop. Child Sexual Abuse and Strength What does it mean when an… Read more »
The term “trauma informed” is getting a lot of attention lately as federal and state governments and other funding sources promote this approach for optimal service delivery. Educators may feel at a loss about what constitutes a trauma informed approach and how best to implement one. The good news is…there are excellent cost effective resources… Read more »
On Monday I wrote about romantic and sexual relationships and the potential intersection with bullying. Today I want to think a little bit about stereotypes and how they lend themselves to an atmosphere that is accepting of bullying. Bullying can and is, of course, based on a wide range of “reasons” that include everything from… Read more »
Sex Ed Expands in California After all of the publicity a few weeks ago about a judge in California ruling that abstinence-only sex education was ineffective and inappropriate, the state assembly is moving towards requiring an expanded sex education in all schools. Sex Ed Goes Prime Time The Bachelorette included a pranked sex ed… Read more »
Continuing my post from last week about bullying, today I am pondering what, exactly, constitutes bullying and how it relates to sexuality, sexual activities, etc. When we talk about bullying on a larger scale, I rarely see sexual contact as an integral part of that conversation. For example, bullying is rarely talked about as something… Read more »
I am thinking a lot about bullying these days, and so as I’m going through CSE manuals, I’m looking for those lessons that support participants as they stand firm in their own identities and sexual decisions. I’ve already talked about many lesson plans that address this issue, like Protect Yourself from Positive Images (about partner… Read more »
Rick Santorum for President? An op-ed piece in Out Magazine outlines why Rick Santorum running for president could be good for LGBTQ communities. The short answer: Because it will cause in-fighting among the republicans, with anyone who is actually electable being weeded out during the primaries. Education Program Used By Duggars Has ‘Horrific’ Sex Abuse Teachings,… Read more »
I had a parent ask me last week how I would approach a new sexual partner. She was getting at her concern for her daughter, who is single and sexually active, and whether her daughter would actually be able to ask about her partner’s STI status – or whether any sex at all was just… Read more »
Why does the teen birth rate keep dropping? Short answer: Because sex ed. The Newsweek article notes that ultimately it’s because teenagers are having sex less, and posit a few additional reasons why, including the recession and Sixteen and Pregnant. Where students get sex ed when it isn’t done at school Churches, LGBT centers, online…we… Read more »
Yep, that is the approach that most people take. Safer sex adds teeny tiny additional points to talk about and consider to a sexual connection. We have come, in the US, to see sex as something that we deserve to have hassle- and worry-free. I’m sure that it’s all the media stories – movies, music, TV, even advertisements!… Read more »
There are two sexually transmitted infections that I find students are the most routinely confused about in class: HPV and Herpes. (It doesn’t help that Herpes is referred to medically as the Herpes Simplex Virus, or HSV.) Today I want to talk about HPV: There are so many strains, they do such apparently different things… Read more »
I am excited to announce that I’m going to be taking over Sex Ed in the News here at the Center for Sex Education! Come back every Tuesday for an update! As if we didn’t already know… Sex ed with gender roles and power dynamics taken into account make all the difference! Some more… Read more »
There are times in our lives when we need a little explicit sexuality education and there are times in our lives when we need a little community education. They offer different kinds of learning, growing, and support. I learned this morning about a community storytelling event that’s happening on an Air Force base in Germany… Read more »
Yesterday’s lesson was an STI game…bingo…or shall I say BINGO!! (Sing it with me now…B…I…N…G…O…and Bingo was his name-o!) Today’s lesson from Teaching Safer Sex is somewhat more staid, but no less important or impactful. Understanding STIs is apparently simple, and yet rampant misinformation plagues the popular conversation. From believing that anal sex carries little… Read more »
I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for games. I’m blowing through the lessons in Game On! faster than any other manual, and I’ve decided I have to pace myself a little tiny bit. But…this game is from Teaching Safer Sex! So I’ve decided it doesn’t really count, even though it’s also included in Game On! … Read more »
Sexuality education covers SO MANY different areas: law, biology, psychology, religion, history…I tend to say that if it’s something humans think about, it probably applies to sex too. As a subject matter to be taught and discussed, however, sexuality is often given a very short shift. Many of the schools I work in only give… Read more »
Someone recently mentioned an activity in Teaching Safer Sex to me that I hadn’t even heard of! Which means, clearly, I haven’t written about enough lessons from this awesome two-volume manual yet. So I’m going to dive deep this week, and maybe next, and maybe even the one after that if I get on a… Read more »
We started off the week with two lessons on anatomy, so why not wrap it up with two Changes, Changes, Changes lessons on vocabulary? I love the alphabet game from yesterday, which you might have been able to tell. This lesson continues the word play by focusing in on the ways that we distract from… Read more »
This week I seem stuck on anatomy. It’s not my usual focus – I prefer the more social and emotional sex ed topics – so it’s probably good for me to focus on the more practical every now and then. Today’s lesson from Changes, Changes, Changes is about anatomy and vocabulary. These topics are inevitably… Read more »
Yesterday’s post was about anatomy – the kind with penises and testicles and ejaculation. So today’s lesson from Changes, Changes, Changes is about another kind of reproductive anatomy: the kind with ovaries and a uterus. This particular lesson just cracks me up. I haven’t actually run through it with a group of middle school students,… Read more »
