comprehensive
Quickies: Pleasure and Fulfillment
Some More Scarleteen Blog Carnival Highlights
We're just getting caught up with the myriad of fantastic blog entries that are part of the blog carnival that's been going on over the last three weeks as an effort to help cultivate support for Scarleteen. We've been reprinting some entries here at our blog, and will keep up with that, but here are a handful we can link right to for you to take a look at:
From Cory Silverberg at About.Com:
Accentuating the (Sex) Positive: Discovering Scarleteen
This is an entry from Arianna at Fearfree, one of the many wonderful guest posts in the month-long blog carnival to help support Scarleteen!
I throw around the words “fear” and “silence” often when it comes to sex ed. They’re loaded terms, perhaps, but these words best describe my experiences with sex education: my emotional reaction and everyone else’s approach, respectively. These words describe what I feel is not often expressed in the sex education debate.
On Innovation and Inclusivity in Sex Education
In many ways, sex education often seems to get stuck in two big places. Plenty of people seem to think that if you're talking about sex to young people at all -- no matter how you're talking about it, no matter why you're talking about it -- that's progressive enough, and for some, that in and of itself is too progressive. Despite Americans having over 100 years to get used to sex education at this point, for many it still seems an innovation, and not a particularly welcome one.
Teen Birth Rate at All-Time Low Due to Condoms, but Abstinence-Only Funding Goes Up?
"In 2005, 47 percent of high school students (6.7 million) reported having had sexual intercourse, down from 54 percent in 1991. The rate of those who reported having had sex has remained the same since 2003.
Of those who had sex during a three-month period in 2005, 63 percent -- about 9 million -- used condoms. That's up from 46 percent in 1991.
What is Feminist Sex Education?
Teens Want More Than Sex "Mechanics"
(Thanks for the AU link, Stephen.)
...a Federal Government-funded study revealed teenagers are crying out for better advice on sexual intimacy and relationships.
Go Congress, Go!
(From Common Dreams Today)
Challenging the "Luxury" of Abstinence by Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK - While there is no indication that the George W. Bush administration is willing to roll back its current restrictions on funding for HIV/AIDS, it may find it difficult to maintain the status quo when Democrats take charge of the U.S. Congress in January.
U.S. efforts to promote abstinence as a cornerstone of sexual education have not lowered levels of sexually transmitted diseases, two former U.S. surgeon generals said on Thursday.
Bill to Fund Comprehensive Sex Ed Introduced in House and Senate
Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced a bill yesterday that would provide $206 million a year in grant money to states for comprehensive, medically accurate, and science-based sex education. The bill, called the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act, would create a grant-giving program to be administered by the Department of Health and Human Services.