In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut) the joke is that it is equally likely to see a woman in a mini skirt as it is to see a woman in a hijab.
In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut), European tourists feel at ease that the Lebanese still speak a post-colonial French, and let Beirut be called the Paris of the Middle East.
In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut), tourists and Lebanese alike flock to the beaches and the nightclubs, openly drinking alcohol, smoking hookahs, and belly dancing to both popular western and Arabic music, creating a strange moment that many see as cultural influence, and many others see as cultural infiltration.
Still—despite the post-colonial familiarity and acceptability of Lebanese culture—Lebanese women remain in many ways decorative objects, openly ignored, slighted or discriminated against in legislation. In Lebanon, a woman cannot pass on her Lebanese nationality to her children. In Lebanon, a woman is not protected from domestic abuse—because the law does not recognize domestic abuse as a crime. In Lebanon, a woman is not protected from marital rape, because the law explicitly states that a married man is entitled to have his wife sexually whenever he pleases.
In Lebanon, if a man rapes an unmarried woman his crime is absolved so long as he proposes marriage to the victim. If she rejects his proposal, his prison sentence is shortened to six months.
If she is not a virgin—or her hymen happened to be previously broken [editor's note, see: My Corona: The Anatomy Formerly Known as the Hymen & the Myths That Surround It] through a myriad of non-sexual means—this is not even an option, because it her rape cannot be proven and counted as rape.
If she is a perfect victim—which in Lebanon means virginal, religious, and focused on either being or becoming the perfect wife and mother—and if that rape case is even reported, the media obsesses over the ethnic and religious identity of the victim and perpetrator, detracting from the universal, horrific nature of the crime itself. In one instance at the end of last year, a young woman named Myriam Achkar was tragically sexually assaulted and then murdered in a Lebanese suburb of Beirut, and though this was the story—an innocent woman was the unfortunate, undeserving victim of a violent, horrible crime, the story that was conveyed through Lebanese media was different. As Lebanese journalist and feminist collective organizer Nadine Moawad wrote at the time,
That’s what the story is: A young woman, 28, takes a 20-minute walk from her home in the suburbs and gets sexually attacked and murdered by a man. But that’s not the story we’re hearing everywhere. What we’re hearing is: A young, Christian, virgin woman, 28, takes a 20-minute walk from her home to a church to pray, and gets sexually attacked and murdered by a Syrian worker.
As rape is conflated with ethnic and religious identities, a rape myth that only the lower class, non-Lebanese Syrian can rape a virginal, Christian Lebanese woman as she is coming home from praying at the church is perpetuated. If he were a wealthy Christian Lebanese man, and she was at a nightclub in Beirut—or worse, his wife–the crime would still be rape, but the story would not be told.
Lebanese women (and men) are beginning to stand up. Last week, the feminist anti-violence collective Nasawiya organized a march through the streets of Beirut, demanding that marital rape and domestic violence be addressed, and that women receive greater protection in the law.
I care about this deeply—because not only am I female and an anti-rape and sexual violence activist, but I am Lebanese-American. I have never been to Lebanon—but I know what it is like to stand up to Islamophobic and Arabophobic people in both France and the United States, and tell them that I am Lebanese. I know that after an awkward moment, they typically tell me that being Lebanese is "good Arab" and "not really the Arab world" and then there is an awkward sentence about how much they love hummus or how Lebanese women are notoriously beautiful.
I want to tell them that there is no such thing as "Good Arab" and "Bad Arab," and just because Lebanon is characterized by colonial influence and has lower rates of visitor warnings, doesn’t mean that we/they do not have heinous political problems. I want to tell them that we/they can solve these problems with the just way, not the be all and end all, hideously flawed western way.
I know what it is like when a cab driver asks me where I am from, that he is curious because I am brown like him, and might share a common culture or common language. I know that no matter how much I would like to simply say, "San Francisco" and have my cultural loose ends tie themselves behind me, that with being questionably brown on American soil invites a series of questions on just how brown you happen to be.
I know that when I say, "Part of my mother’s family is Lebanese"—because that’s what seems to make the most sense—the next question is, "Your mother’s family, are they Christian?"
I know what it is like almost three full generations later to wonder why the hell this even matters—but I know for many Lebanese women (and men) it can matter very much. I know that three generations later, through the fault of my unquestionably ethnic spice rack, the family recipes that I grew up with as "normal" (but are far too characterized by generous helpings of lamb, bulghar wheat, parsley, and cinnamon to be considered "American"), big eyes, and skin just brown enough to beg the question, "what are you?" that I have a personal, selfish stake in these women’s lives, well-being and daily bull shit—because it is just an accident that I am not one of them.
As Lebanon moves forward, and Lebanese feminists like the members of Nasawiya begin to stand up, rejecting the decorative role that society has imposed upon them and demanding that anti-violence legislation is written and implemented into the legal and cultural code, I am following half a world away with baited breath and excitement, wishing that I could also close my computer and take to the streets of Beirut. I hope that I finally visit Lebanon soon—and that when I do, I don’t have to take to the streets because Lebanese women are protected by the law and treated as equals, not because of the colonial savior of western influence or infiltration, but because women everywhere, around the world—regardless of race, religious affiliation, or ethnicity—deserve their issues to be addressed and respected in the law.
In Lebanon, the women and men—regardless of ethnicity, class, and religious affiliation—are fighting for this right.
This piece was originally published at:http://www.annalekasmiller.com
It was probably obvious yesterday that we earnestly thought the FDA might finally turn around a longtime decision, one largely against all advice, information and recommendations from sexual, reproductive and adolescent health and rights experts and advocates, when it came to unfounded restrictions long put on teen access to Plan B.
And that was going to actually happen. The FDA was on board this time around and made the decision to ditch those restrictions. People under 17 were finally going to have the same kind of access to a safe, important kind of contraception those over 17 had, a kind of access there is simply no sound reason to restrict.
And yet.
In what Jodi Jacobson of RH Reality Check so rightfully said can, "only be called an astounding move by an Administration that pledged on inauguration day that medical and health decisions would be based on fact not ideology and for which women are a major constituency, today Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) overruled a much-awaited decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make emergency contraception (EC) available over-the-counter (OTC) to women of all ages."
I don't think we can express enough how tremendously and deeply frustrated and infuriated we are here that our optimism was in vain and was so outrageously gutted.
You can read more about it here, here and here and see the memorandum from Kathleen Sebelius here.
If you're like many of our readers and Facebook fans, reading those things will leave you feeling just as angry as we feel about it, if not more so.
It's so tremendously important your frustrations and opposition be heard (perhaps particularly by an administration which rallied youth for their support in getting elected and were so greatly benefitted when young people stood up for them).
It's so tremendously important that your requests for rights like these be heard. And that the incredibly sound, sage things you say like this from reader Arai, "These politicians really need to get on the same CENTURY as the one young people live. All the questioning for contraceptives, abortion rights, gay marriage are real in today's society," or this from reader Katrina, "Politicians on both sides of the aisle reach unheard of levels of cluelessness when it comes to youth reproductive rights and needs," are heard and seen. It is, of course just as important that they are also very thoughtfully and with great intention considered in choices like this, but we can't help much with that part, save continuing to say things like that and continuing to be ardent supporters of youth rights, including reproductive rights.
But what we can certainly help with is to provide at least one place where you can speak your mind about this and be seen and heard, and then take those comments and get more eyes on them from there.
Please leave your comments here about this decision if you are unhappy with it. Please pitch in to help add your voice to other youth voices about this issue if you want to do one of the most basic things you can, the most important things you can, to work towards a different, better, fairer, outcome.
Like we told one of our readers today when she asked why young people should have to ask, beg even, for rights you should have in the first place, the only answer we have is that you shouldn't. But just like other groups have had to voice a strong desire for rights they never should have -- like women and people of color seeking the right to vote, people of color seeking the same essential useful rights white people had, LGBT people asking for the same rights, freedoms and protections cisgender or straight people have -- you've got to keep doing the same with rights like this if you want them.
You shouldn't have to: you absolutely shouldn't have to. But, for now, you do.
Speak your mind: we want to hear you and other people, including this administration -- whether you're a citizen or not -- need to start hearing you. And listening.
P.S.: Would you rather blog about it in a different place? If you do, leave a link!
P.P.S.: The Change.org petition in protest of Secretary Sebelius' action is here.
I'm a 16 year old boy, and for as long as I can remember I have been attracted to girls and yet rarely able to feel comfortable around them and get to know them. I've always been a nice person (the friendly guy) but without that many actual close friends who are girls. Recently I've noticed I am turned on (and everything that follows that) with the thought of receiving anal. Yet when I actually tried to see what anal was like through porn (I know this isn't realistic) I really didn't like it (to be polite). People have sometimes quietly thought of me as homosexual as I've never had a girlfriend and now I'm really not sure about myself? There are so many bad stereotypes and public jokes about gays I don't think its worth considering? I guess if I could fall in love with a girl and kiss her I would be far more confident...but I shouldn't need this! Advice please?
In hindsight, I knew when I was around ten or eleven that I was queer: that I had and was experiencing growing sexual and romantic feelings for people of all genders, not just those of one of for those of a different sex or gender than me, feelings I'd continue to have throughout my teen years and my adult life to date. I didn't have the language for it then, though, even though there were queer adults in my orbit I could have gotten it from, adults I naturally gravitated towards without realizing a big part of why was because I saw myself in them and I really needed them. Looking back, others identified my orientation before I did: a homophobic grandparent, an uncomfortable parent as well as a comfortable and readily accepting parent, and, most important to this particular tale, a group of teenage meanies in the blessedly brief time I spent in a suburban public high school in the 80's who sometimes whispered but other times yelled, "Dyke!" or "Lesbo!" as they passed me in the halls.
In that high school, I had a tiny but great handful of friends, all of us outcasts in one way or more: because we were queer, because we were punk, because we had less money, because we were just different and either showed it outright or couldn't pass as "normal." When any of us got harassed, we often had each other to blow off steam with, to find solidarity with, but we couldn't always be there for each other, and even when we could, that didn't make the harassment and bullying any less scary nor did it sting any less.
I remember a particular bunch of girls, junior cheerleaders, especially their nasty ringleader. Jill was the one who instigated most of the harassment, who'd walk by me the most often and bark homophobic slurs, who spread the most gossip about me, even though I'd never done anything to her, or even had any interaction with her at all outside her bullying that I could recall. Heck, I never even talked back when she harassed me: usually I simply scurried into the bathroom or a classroom, flew out unto the smoking lot trying to puff out my upset, or just pretended I didn't hear her and kept on walking. When my boyfriend violently and unexpectedly committed suicide, it was probably Jill who started a very deeply painful and fast-spreading rumor that I'd shot him myself because I was really a deranged, man-hating lesbian.
I'd made myself go to school the day after he died because I was worried I wouldn't be safe for myself home alone. As awful an environment as that school had been for me, I didn't anticipate that even after something so terrible had happened to me, I couldn't count on it to be safe for just one day, or that such a terrible tragedy would be seen by anyone as an opportunity to bully me more about my orientation, of all things. The suggestion that I'd done something so terrible to someone I loved so much, and was reeling so much over the loss of, to the point of being catatonic was beyond outrage; even knowing full well it wasn't true, even knowing the likely source knew nothing about me, it made something already so traumatic so, so much more painful. Maybe to Jill and those like her, any of this seemed harmless or minor or even funny, but it wasn't any of those things for me.
Luckily, I was able to get out of that school shortly thereafter. I switched to a small performing arts school in Chicago, where there were just as many queer kids as straight kids, where queer teachers were out, where I was in a safe community where sexual orientation and all kinds of other perceived weirdness was pretty much a total non-issue. A place where everyone was generally wonderful to each other, perhaps because so many of us had been treated so badly by others in other places before. That school, for so many of us, was our safe haven, and it was very much mine.
Around a year later, I was out with a bunch of friends, including a girl I really liked, at an all-ages club on the north side of Chicago. It wasn't a queer club specifically, but it was a place more meant for misfits of every variety than for girls like Jill; a place where it was also safe to be queer and out. I felt able to be who I was there, including being the girl who really liked this other girl and wanted to keep my lips attached to her face as much as was humanly possible.
So, when I was inside the club making out with my I-so-hope-she-becomes-my-girlfriend and I heard someone behind us squeal, "Oh my GAWD, it's that fucking dyke! I knew it! DYKE!" I was pretty surprised. When I turned around to see that it was Jill and her mall-haired gaggle of flying monkeys, I was even more surprised.
But perhaps the most surprising thing of all was that what she said didn't hurt, not even a little. It wasn't scary. It didn't make me feel small.
It was pathetic, really. It felt like merely a statement of fact, said in such a way that made her look like an idiot, and in a place where the only person who got outed was her: as a bully and a jerk. She was trying to announce to the world I was queer, which seemed a mighty silly thing to do when no one could announce it more than I already had with my lips and hands all over another girl in a public place. Not only did I not care if everyone in the club knew, I knew that what she'd telegraphed most was not how I didn't belong, but how she didn't; not how I wasn't okay, but how she wasn't; not how outnumbered I was, but how outnumbered she was. I wasn't in her space anymore: she was in mine. She hadn't made me unsafe or unwelcome: the only person she made unsafe and unwelcome in that moment and place was herself, made so by herself. I didn't feel embarrassed myself; even despite strongly disliking her, for a nanosecond, I actually felt embarrassed for her.
I grinned. My girlfriend and our friends grinned and then we just laughed. I gave Jill a thumbs up, and then the girl I was with decided she'd had enough of the unwanted interruption and pulled me right back to what we were previously doing, with Jill's continued whine of dykey-dyke-dyke waning like a car running out of gas and feeling more like a cheer for my home team than a jeer. Getting very well kissed while someone (someone who is NOT being kissed, thankyouverymuch) weakly calls you a dyke, The Smiths blaring in the background so you're thinking that in that moment, maybe even Morrissey is happy for once? It really takes the edge off.
It took a while for things to get better for me in a bigger way, but that was the first moment where I remember strongly and firmly feeling that it was going to get better, that it already had, and that it would keep getting better; that people like Jill were going to have less and less impact on and power over me and everyone else as time went on. You know, just writing about all of that brought sharply back how much it hurt: it's gotten better enough for me since then that without dredging it all up again, I earnestly forgot just how very painful it was. It getting better can not only make your present life a lot better, it can also make the times it wasn't better hurt a lot less and have a lot less impact. It gets harder to remember the bad stuff when the better stuff has been so great. And once it has gotten better, even when the jeers or the harassment or the bizarre accusations still happen, it gets a lot easier to brush off and a lot harder to let it get you down.
Admittedly, when it came to my orientation (as opposed to other areas of my life and person), I didn't have it as bad as some other kids I knew, certainly not as bad as most queer people in the many generations before me, and not as bad as plenty of young people today still have it. Not everyone has queer friends or friends at all, not everyone lives in or very near an urban area, not everyone is afforded an opportunity to find a school like I did, not everyone has at least one supportive parent, not everyone even knows one other queer person, and not everyone has even one place they can make out with -- or even hang out with -- someone of the same-sex or a similar-gender and feel or earnestly be safe.
It turns out that Dan Savage and I grew up in and around the same neighborhoods (and now live in the same far-flung state, how weird is that?). Dan, like I did, found that it got a lot better, and Dan, syndicated sex columnist and the editorial director of The Stranger, just started a new project, It Gets Better, to help support young people in knowing that it can get better, and for so many of us, has gotten better, something it can be so hard to know or believe sometimes. Like Dan, I really feel confident saying that for however bad it is now, the chances are extraordinarily good that it will get better.
Billy Lucas was just 15 when he hanged himself in a barn on his grandmother's property. He reportedly endured intense bullying at the hands of his classmates—classmates who called him a fag and told him to kill himself. His mother found his body....
I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.
But gay adults aren't allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don't bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay—or from ever coming out—by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.
Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don't have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids.
If you haven't taken a look at the videos in the project, you really should, whatever your age or orientation. They're powerful, positive and full of love, hope and all the other good stuff everyone needs. If you are queer and young, know that a lot of those powerful-sounding, happy people looked and felt a whole lot like you do once, and as much as it hurt like hell to get through it, they did it, and they want to do what they can to help you get through it, too. Dan took the time to answer some of my questions about the project this morning, and here's what he had to say:
Heather: In your own life, before it really did start to get better, did you have any cues or glimpses that it might get better you didn't recognize at the time?
Dan: It turns out there were gay people in family's orbit—priests, mostly, and a couple of waiters (my mom and dad ran a restaurant for a while)—but they weren't open about it front of us, "the children," because... well, you had to be discreet, right? Because then they would've been shoving it down our throats, etc., etc. And my parents believed, at the time, that they could protect us from becoming gay—me, the momma's boy, in particular—by keeping information about gay people, and gay role models, away from us. They were, as it turns out, pretty spectacularly wrong, huh?
The first clues I got that it wouldn't be so bad came when I was old enough to explore the city on my own. I grew up in Chicago and by the time I was 15, in 1979, I was riding my bike through the gay neighborhood, and I could see gay men and women. But this, of course, was back when gay neighborhoods were still pretty marginal, and most people who were gay were still closeted. So I wasn't seeing a representative sample of gay men and lesbians. I was seeing guys with huge mustaches on their way to the baths. And that wasn't what I wanted for myself. I remember thinking, "But this is all I can have," and being depressed.
Heather: I know I deeply benefitted by changing my community and my school, something I was lucky enough to be able to do. But I also was able to recognize that the problem WAS my community and my school, and not me or my orientation, something not everyone can recognize, especially without family or other supportive people around who are accepting of every orientation and sexual identity. For those who have really internalized every negative message around them, for whom positive messages don't seem real or are hard to hear, what can you offer?
Dan: Look around, look at the people who disprove the lies that you've internalized. Either they're crazy — all those openly gay, happy, successful people out there — or the people who told you being gay is a sin are crazy.
You know, I've always said that what saved was a little voice inside myself that kept saying, "You're fine, Dan, everybody else is fucked in their fucking heads." I don't know where that voice came from. Maybe my mom, maybe my dad, maybe even my Catholic education. I kept saying to myself, "Being gay hurts no one, so it can't be wrong. I don't want to kiss boys who don't want me to kiss them, so where is the harm in this? How can it be evil?"
Heather: Of the videos done for the project so far, which are your favorites?
Dan: Oh, my god. The one with the two guys who realize they're making a video for 15 year old boys and they need to think about what interests them. And suddenly there are really hot gay boys in the room dancing around in their underwear. The one made in SF with crowds of people chanting "IT GETS BETTER!" The one with a gay couple with a daughter named DJ. My son is named DJ. The rural lesbian farmer. The gay Muslim teenager. And on and on.
Heather: You're a writer, so video isn't usually the way you do your thing. Is there a reason you picked video as the medium for this project?
Dan: Yes, because I wanted to show them our lives. And kids use YouTube and understand social media. I wanted adults to talk to them about their lives, to share pictures, to look into their eyes and say, "It gets better."
Heather: I do agree that it usually does get better over time, often a lot better. But in the meantime, what do you suggest for young people trying to cope with the fact that it's not better yet, or where it feels like it's going to take an awfully long time for things to get better, or like they never might?
Dan: You know, if you're in an impossible situation—violently homophobic parents, small town, anti-gay peers — don't kick down the closet door and wind up on the streets. Wait it out. Find the stuff you enjoy, for me it was reading and theater, and pursue that, your interests, while your straight peers are pursuing each other. Instead of bemoaning what your life is like at 15, start laying the groundwork for the life you could have just a few years later at 18.
Leave the house, get involved with something, anything, that you find rewarding. It might be working in a foodbank. A lot of gay kids excel at non-team sports: biking, tennis, swimming. Whatever it is, go and do that. You'll be healthier for it and you just might meet some other gay kids.
Heather: How can young people act in their own interest to MAKE it better, both queer young people, but also young, straight allies? What about older LGBTQ people for whom it is now better: how can all of us best help young people for whom it's not better yet?
Dan: If you're going to a public school, form a GSA. If you're discriminated against, reach out to the ACLU for help. They do amazing work with and on behalf of LGBT teenagers. You have rights. Look around your school for straight allies and friends. If there isn't a community for you at your school, try to make one. If your school environment is so hostile that you can't make one, go find one outside of school.
And if you're being bullied at school and at home and at church, and in despair, reach out to the Trevor Project for help and support. And remember: it ends. School ends. It gets better.
You can also reach out to the people who are posting videos at the It Gets Better Project. If you post a comment to a video, it goes right to the person who posted it. That's one of the really amazing things about IGBP. Mormon teenagers can reach out to the gay Mormon adults whose videos they've watched online, gay Muslim teenagers can reach out to the Muslim gay adults, young trans kids can reach out to the trans adults, and on and on. It's linking people up, giving them help in addition to hope.
Heather: What can we tell schools, specifically, about making it better now? So many schools still are not safe spaces and still outright refuse to be safe spaces, not just peers, but administrations, too.
Dan: Make it better or we're going to sue your asses and it's going to cost you money. Really, that's what it's going to take.
Heather: Which is something young people can do: again, for students in the United States, that's the right time to contact your local ACLU branch and they will help. For students internationally, Amnesty International is a good place to start.
How do you feel about the fact that one way for queer young people to protect themselves is simply not to come out? Do you think the downsides of staying in the closet are worth the protection it can offer?
Dan: I think it's really irresponsible to tell all queer kids to come out without first advising them to take a long, hard, cold look at their particular circumstances. If a 14 year comes out because he's been told that he must, or should, or that's how it gets better, and is thrown out of the house, what then?
Some kids are just not in situations where they can come out. Most of the kids who are being bullied to death were the ones who couldn't hide. I'm sure there are other gay kids in those schools, gay kids who can pass for straight. Would we advise them to come out?
Heather: Working with young people internationally, I have to know that there are many for whom it won't actually get better unless they emigrate elsewhere or completely divorce themselves from their families and cultures, something that's a lot easier for people of privilege to do than for those without. I don't know about you, but I always struggle to know how to best support young people in whole countries or cultures in which the treatment they get in high school really is indicative of -- if not more benign than -- the treatment they'll get after high school. Obviously, just saying, "You need to move far, far away," is only so helpful. Any ideas? (Besides an underground railroad, which I think about every day, but can't visualize how we'd do it yet. Unless you have ideas about how to make that happen.)
Dan: We've seen some gay and lesbian people from repressive societies successfully claim asylum in countries that recognize the humanity, if not the full civil equality, of LGBT persons. My heart aches for LGBT kids condemned to grow up in Iran or Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately the best advice — even though it's not always realistic — is to get out. Flee to a country like the UK or the US or Canada, come out, and file for asylum.
Check out the project. Make your own video if you can, or make your very own project to be supportive: this doesn't just have to come from adults, after all, and hopefully we don't have to tell you about the power a peer talking to another peer can have, something often even more powerful than what older adults can offer.
If you've been at Scarleteen before, you've already identified one safe space for you online. If you're new to Scarleteen, welcome in! Know that this is a safe space for you and we'll always be committed to keeping it that way. Most of our staff and volunteers are queer ourselves, and our straight staff and volunteers are fantastic, supportive allies, as are many young adult users and members of our community. We're not only committed to helping things get better for you and helping you make them better as much as you can, but to listening to you, holding your stories, and giving you whatever support you want that we can give while it's still not better at all. But this isn't the only safe space, nor the only resource available to queer youth. Want some more?
Online, you can check out:
There are some great hotlines that you can use when you need to talk to someone:
Want some books to help you through it? See if you can't find a copy of:
I'm bisexual, and I really would like to tell my friends. I mean, they seem pretty open-minded, being pro-gay rights and generally accepting. The thing is, they're being open-minded from afar. If they found out that one of their closest friends is bisexual, I'm not sure they'd be too keen on the idea of having a bisexual girl friend. One even has said that she wouldn't want to have sleepovers at a girl's house if she liked girls. I'm honestly not attracted to her or any other one of my friends (well, maybe one a little, but I'd never make her uncomfortable or anything) but they don't get that. I don't know how to tell them that I like girls but that doesn't mean I like all girls. I'm not sure they'd believe me. Help, please?
Maybe I'm just being optimistic, but lately I feel like I have been noticing more people who really want to hear and know what young people think. Not who want to assume, presume, project or decide what you think, but who actually want to ask you and hear what you have to say about yourselves for yourselves.
If I'm not delusional in noticing this (always a possibility), I don't have to tell you this is obviously very good news.
One of the common complaints we hear a lot at Scarleteen from young people is how often you have to put up with older adults out and about in the world saying things about you that you don't think are true, or making broad generalizations about all teens or twentysomethings that don't accurately represent the vast diversity among you. And that last thing you need me to tel you is that that can be particularly problematic when it comes to talk that has anything to do with sex or sexuality.
Of course, one of the challenges when adults ask to hear what you have to say is actually having that conversation (which involves earnestly stepping up on your part, but also involves older people stepping up to pay attention when you do speak out), finding places to truly be heard and feeling able to really and safely speak your truth.
So, in the interest of hopefully helping grease the wheels so that you can be heard not only more, but really heard well, I want to put a couple questions out to you, in a place where older adults can read the answers.
In the comments on this post, can you -- you, teens and twentysomethings, not older adults -- talk about what you want and need when it comes to open, safe space for you to be able to talk about yourself and your realities, particularly outside youth-oriented spaces like Scarleteen and other places like it? What do you need older adults to do? How do you need them to respond (or keep from responding)? What makes you feel emotionally safe and respected? What helps keep you from feeling patronized? What do you need as far as trust goes to say what's your for-real and be assured it won't be used against you or misrepresented?
Seriously, the ears of some older people are burning. Fill'em in.
This is one of a long line of common phrases in sex education and sexuality messaging people, including people I think of us allies, use that I deeply dislike, like "preventing teen pregnancy." Let me explain why, working backwards.
That's usually followed by "then you should have sex using safer sex and contraception." Or -- and usually addressing both those things -- "then you should at least be responsible."
In some respect, that's fine. Now, not everyone needs contraception, either because they don't have a partner with a radically different reproductive system than them or they're not having the kinds of sex that can create a pregnancy, so that doesn't always make sense. But for people choosing to have any kind of sex, we're 100% on board with the sentiment that all of us -- no matter our age -- should be engaging in sexual practices supportive of safeguarding everyone's best health, and in alignment with whether we do or don't want or are or are not ready for a pregnancy. This statement often tacitly or inadvertently defining all sex as opposite-sexed or as intercourse isn't okay, but overall, on the safer sex and contraception bit? I'm right there with you.
The "if you can't?" Not cool. We all can elect not to have any kind of consensual sex, sparing masturbation we may unknowingly do in our sleep, something that happens sometimes. Some people also do have earnest impulse control disorders, but those are disorders, and do not occur in the vast majority of people of any age.
If we have consensual sex it is completely within our control, whether we're 13, 26 or 63. There is no "can't wait" when it comes to consensual sex. To suggest there is is not only incorrect, as we have free will, it can also be rape enabling. It backs up those who excuse rape by saying they (or rapists) couldn't control themselves, that just they couldn't help it, that when they feel sexual they cannot stop themselves and every kind of garbage of that ilk that is an absolute, and highly convenient, fiction. People always can hold off on sex or decline sex unless someone is being sexually assaulted or abused, in which case the person doing the abusing is in control of what is happening, but the person being victimized is not because the other person or group has also taken control of that person in some way. If we are choosing to have sex, that choice in and of itself is one of responsibility, and if we're bearing our own and our partner's consent in mind, one is already being responsible.
Some folks say "don't" instead of can't. That's far better. There most certainly is a "don't want to wait," but there isn't a can't. Nearly everyone can. It's just that not everyone always wants to. Not only is that a more truthful framing, it's one which makes clear that active consent and decision-making, and owning your choices, is of great import.
This "can't" stuff also plays into the way people often misrepresent teen sexuality: something out of one's control or will, as about "raging hormones" (hormones with apparent superpowers that can compel the body to move against one's own will); as a burly, untamable, and usually masculine beastie that picks young folks up by the feet and shakes them until they don't have two pennies of sense left to rub together. I'm not about to argue that when sexual feelings first start to develop and flourish that they don't often feel heady, even unwieldy: they sure can. But that doesn't make them unmanageable or make any actions one may take stemming from them out of a person's control.
I will also argue this is somewhat situational -- not about people only of a given age, gender or marital status -- and that we know older adults also experience strong sexual feelings. In addition, I hear from a lot of young people worried something is wrong with them because their sexual feelings are not at the mega-hormone-madness level people say teenage sexual feelings are. Heck, maybe it's both a misrepresentation of young adult sexuality AND older adult sexuality. All the same, young people are capable managing their sexuality well, and also tend to do a better job with it in cultures that don't present teen sexuality like this. And if young people hear adults suggesting or implying that sexual feelings are not something in everyone's control, they also are more likely to a) fall for partners who coerce them by suggesting as much, and b) won't recognize or report sexual abuse when that's what's going on.
There's another big flaw with the general message here: "You should wait for sex, but if you can't, be responsible." Huh? If there's something we should do, and we're not doing it, we're probably not being responsible already: by definition and context, the term "should" here implies an obligation. If we are NOT making and owning our own active sexual choices, or if we "can't" have the ability to own our choices at all, and thus, are irresponsible by default, we are absolutely not being responsible. So, "If you can't be responsible... be responsible?" That's -1 + 1, which equals zero. It's null.
...until? Until you're married? Until you're in a committed relationship? Until you're older? How much older? By whose standards or what criteria? And why: what will one, three, five or ten years automatically provide just by having a birthday each year? (Or "until I can or want to deal with you being sexual, because I'd just rather not?")
Many people do have down that the "until you're married" part isn't sound. Not all of us have the legal right to get married to people we love, at any age. Some of us don't want to get married, or don't want to enter into marriages without a sense of whether or not we have a compatible sexual relationship with a given person first. Some of us are in all of those camps. Too, marriage does not mean a lack of STIs, a lack of unwanted pregnancies, a healthy relationship or a stellar sex life (even far-right folks even know this part, they just vociferously avoid admitting it). It never has. It doesn't still. And as we mentioned just the other day, through history, even for those who did/do marry, most people have had sex before marriage, especially if of people who marry, both were not very young teens when they did. Saving sex for marriage was never a realistic standard for most young adults, nor a common practice.
Long-term committed relationships have more positive outcomes for some people. Some people also have positive outcomes in casual or shorter-term relationships. For most of us, it's not a simple either/or, because it depends on the specific relationship or scenario and on what that person wants and feels best about at a given time in their lives.
Wait until you're older? How much older? Until it's legal? Think whatever we do about age of consent laws, that's pretty sound. But even in states where the age of consent is, say, 16 or 18, there are almost always allowances for same-age sexual relationships for those under that age. If it's not about the law, at what age does everyone, unilaterally, acquire the skills, resources and the right relationships and scenarios to assure, or at least strongly suggest, sex will be either devoid of unwanted outcomes or bear less risk of them, or be a positive? If, in reading this, you're not silent and have that one magical age handy for me, I need to assure you that I can't think of one single age, talking to people of many ages about sex, I have not had people report negative or unwanted outcomes with. I also have never seen evidence or data via study to show such an age exists.
We have do sound study that tells us things like that younger teens' expectations of sex often are very unrealistic, and that the youngest teens also report unwanted outcomes from sex or unhappy experiences more frequently than older teens do. We also have good data that shows us that for the youngest teens, sex more often is not consensual sex, but is rape, via either force or coercion. Data like that is critically important, and is good to share with young people when we're talking with them about sex, especially if they seem to specifically fit the picture of any of that data. However, there will always be exceptions, and often those exceptions are not about a few teens, but about a few million. Age-in-years also isn't all that's going on in those pictures.
Here's where both I, and Scarleteen as an organization, stand on this.
What we want is for everyone to only have any kind of sex -- be it intercourse or any other physically enacted expression of sexuality with oneself or a partner -- when it is what everyone involved in a sexual scenario: strongly wants, can and does actively consent to, feels prepared for and has the knowledge and capacity to have sex in a way that is physically and emotionally safe. We want this for everyone the first time they have any kind of sex, and then every time thereafter.
If "you should wait" means until all of THAT, then you betcha, we're on board. This is our goal for people of every age, and we don't think it's fair or reasonable to hold young people to different standards on this than we hold, or anyone else holds, older people (especially if you're going to say young people are less capable of meeting the standard than older people, but older people don't need to meet it once they are capable).
The kinds of things we know ARE likely to create positive sexual outcomes -- areas we can clearly see are where those positive outcomes most often occur -- are things like having an earnest and shared desire for sex with the person you're having it with, having knowledge about and access to sexual healthcare, safer sex tools and contraception; having the full legal right to and a sense of ownership of your own body (be that about the right to give nonconsent and consent or reproductive rights), having emotional support and acceptance from your community and culture, not feeling shame or fear about sex or sexuality; having a strong sense of self as well as a real care for others and feeling prepared for and at least somewhat skilled with the kinds of things sex requires, like communication, vulnerability, creativity, compassion, discovery and boundary-setting. There are people who are teens and who have all of those things sometimes: there are plenty who do not. There are people who are 20, 30 or 50 who do not: there are also plenty who do. While age and life experience can absolutely hone any and all of those things, a) it clearly doesn't for all people (if only) and b) some of those things can sometimes be easier for younger people than older people, especially if they haven't unlearned any of their intuitive skills with them yet
I know that there is no one broad group which people can be a member of that guarantees unilaterally positive sexual experiences or relationships with either unilaterally positive outcomes, or a lack of any negative outcomes. Everyone who works in sexuality knows this. Marriage doesn't do that, and it never has. Being of a certain gender doesn't do that, nor of a certain race or economic class. Being of a certain age doesn't do that, either, and also never has. Setting aside both the implicit falsehood of these kinds of statements, and the audacity of making them to members of a group which we are not members of ourselves, if we give young people the idea that getting married, having a partner for X-months or X-years or reaching some magical-age-or-other will immediately imbue them with all of the above resources, skills or scenarios, we aren't helping them any. At best, we potentially set them up for disappointment, but at worst, we may put them right in harm's way -- since those things alone do NOT protect them -- the very thing I think most people do want to prevent.
The other thing "wait until" can say as a message, intentionally or not, is that once anyone chooses to have sex, it's a Pandora's Box they have opened and can't shut evermore. Sexual choices are not just important or meaningful the first time we make them: those choices are always meaningful, we consider if sex is something that is right for us every time we do or don't choose to engage in it, and we all always have the right to change our minds and decline sex, even if we had it before. But a lot of young people don't know or feel that, especially with the other messages they get about how their valuation as people changes based on whether or not they have had sex or do have sex. I know, for certain, our allies don't want to enable that message to young people, but I worry some do because this messaging dovetails with that kind all too easily.
Shoulds are tricky when we're talking about sexuality, especially when making opening or general statements, rather than responding to someone's specifically expressed wants and/or needs. Given a rare few of us have been reared without pervasive shoulds when it comes to sex, or have been totally uninfluenced by a world which is rife with them, it's really easy to slip into saying "should" and we all usually have to work hard to avoid it. But I think we need to try.
When it comes to things like what kind of sex someone enjoys or wants, or to when sex will most likely be right for them (especially in a given situation when you don't even know what their unique situation is), "you should" usually means something more like, "I wouldn't," "I didn't," "I don't think you should because I didn't like that," "That didn't work out so well for me, so it probably won't for you" "I'd prefer if you didn't because what I want is..." "My personal values dictate..." or "Some person or idea who has more authority than you do says no."
This is a particularly problematic issue when adults are talking to young people, and all the more so when they're saying "shoulds" about nothing but age-in-years and personal projections. So often, adults have the idea that because they were once a young person of 13 or 19 or 22, they know all of how it is for young people of that same age. Even adults who once knew how full of baloney that was when they were teens.
For sure, those of us who are older were once younger. We were, however, our own younger selves, not the younger person we are talking with and about right now. We were also not our younger selves in the same time they are their younger selves. While some parts of a given experience they had may be much like one we had, they may experience that thing very differently, or have different outcomes than we did. For sure, age and hindsight gives us perspectives, and those truly are often valuable, especially if we're mindful people. But the idea that we know so much more than a younger person about their experiences, or what may be their experiences, just because of our experiences or our age isn't kosher. It is, in fact, is one of the ways that adults are often adultist. On top of that, we have adults who DID wait past X-age to be sexual with partners, and felt that was best for them: but not having had the other experience, they can't know what that would have been like for them. Then we have adults who had sex younger than they feel would have been best for them: they have a bit more information than the former group, but still can't know what starting sex at a different age would have been like. Having experience with something doesn't give us experience with not-something-else.
Nearly of my own consensual sexual experiences and relationships as a teen, including those when I was a young teen, were positive, enjoyable and loving and I didn't have the unwanted outcomes we've always heard will fall upon the heads of teens who have sex (likely because I did very well with safer sex and contraception when it was needed), save a broken heart a few times. No more achy-breaky than heartbreak I experienced from nonsexual relationships, though (actually, I think those heartbreaks were sometimes worse for me). I've heard from more than my fair share of adults my age or older who both don't manage their sex lives NOW as well as I did as a teenager and who are less pleased with their sex lives as adults than I was with mine as a teen. However, because my experience was like that at a given age does not mean I'm going to assume every other 15-year-old female-bodied person out there, at this point in time or any other, will have or will have had the same experiences I did. I think most people, including people whose politics are radically different than mine, would agree it would be grossly irresponsible for me to project my own experiences and outcomes unto any other young person just because they're the same age I was, doing the same things. And if that's so, those folks should also agree the same would be true had I had very negative experiences and unwanted outcomes.
My own experiences, like yours, may provide me perspectives (and also potential biases) I may not have had I had very different experiences. But it's my job to manage them and put them in greater perspective, to recognize they are individual, not universal, to avoid projecting and to figure that for any given teen out there who might have been just like me, there's one out there who is radically different, and for whom my choices at a given age would be a terrible fit, with very different outcomes.
If being older really makes us wiser, why do adults have such a hard time seeing when we're projecting this stuff unto young people, or recognizing it's often disrespectful? Many times that "should" comes from the I-did-this-I had-bad-things-happen place. I completely understand adults -- especially those who are parents or are mentors, teachers or other allies, rather than folks who don't have any real emotional investment in a teen or teens lives -- wanting to do what they can, within reason and with care, to help young people avoid harm or hurt. I think that's laudable and loving. However, a negative outcome happening from something we do at one age doesn't mean it'll happen to all people that age doing that same thing. We all need to think more deeply than this and present teens with thoughts of more depth.
I took a one-block walk to the park to play when I was seven, climbed on what looked like a jungle gym in an alley to me (it so wasn't) and I wound up slicing off half my hand, which left me with a permanent disability. Does that mean that it's a bad idea for seven-year-olds to go take a walk, and we can be sure of that because of what happened to me when I was seven? If I have had both positive and negatives with both serious and casual relationships, does that mean all must be good for everyone...or that none are?
Maybe you had intercourse with your boyfriend when you were 15. You didn't use birth control and became unwantedly pregnant, or a condom wasn't used and you got an STI. You didn't come into the relationship with knowledge about either of these things, nor sound negotiation skills or a real sense of self-esteem. You hid your sexual activity because per your religion, you were breaking the rules and sinning. Your relationship was also crappy, and the guy wound up leaving you, on top of everything. So, if you had had intercourse at 20, but all those other conditions were exactly the same, do you think the outcome would have been different? Doubtful. Just like if that guy had a mustache, things would not have been different with all the same conditions at the same age with a partner sans mustache. The problem most likely was not being 15. It was all the conditions of that equation.
There's often some coulda-woulda-shoulda going on here, too. A lot of people come of age with ideas of what "perfect sex" or "perfect lover" or "perfect first time" is. Many people have the idea that if they had just done X-thing differently, they would have had that perfect first time instead of the less-than-stellar experience they had. Certainly, we don't always all make the best choices and some different choices very much may have resulted in different outcomes -- because no, someone who had no sex at all would not have become pregnant, and someone who didn't choose a sex partner they knew was a jerk would have been less likely to wind up with a jerk-in-bed. But as someone who hears a WHOLE lot about that "perfect first time," including from people who followed all the given "rules" about what promises to make that so? I gotta tell you: if you didn't have it, one reason why was that, in large part, that "perfect" first time isn't real. It, like perfect lovers and perfect sex, is a fable; a fantasy. That's why it's so sparkly and shiny. Too, we can't ever know what outcome switching up one thing differently would have had, or what THAT change may have created. We hear a similar tactic in reproductive justice a lot, when people who are antichoice and regret an abortion they had say that they should have done adoption, that would have been so much less painful. Not only do they have no way of knowing that, that ignores the endless scores of women who HAVE surrendered a child and found it very painful. Grass, greener, other side: you know this one.
"Should" is a word that also has something to do with control. When we say "should" to someone -- especially without context, such as where someone tells us they want to have sex without a pregnancy, so we say they should then consider using contraception -- we suggest someone is obligated to make a certain choice. That's not helpful messaging if some of our intent is truly to empower people to make their own best choices, rather than to try and get them to make the choices we want them to for our own benefit or personal agenda (which can certainly include trying to rewrite or correct our own sexual histories). The phraseology here also suggests that responsibility is more about someone doing their duty, being a good citizen or a "good person," than just caring for themselves and caring for others: it's the latter motivation that's more likely to help people create and nurture positive sexual lives and relationships. Plus, messages of duty and/or obligation in regard to sex are particularly noxious for women, for whom much of the whole cultural history of sexuality has been about sex as a duty and obligation.
I would be so delighted if we could start to broadly hear a change in this messaging, especially from individuals or organizations I know or think truly want what is best for young people, which certainly includes, ideally, a reduction of negative or unwanted outcomes from sex, and also -- pretty please? -- some address of consent; which I also hope includes nurturing positive, wanted outcomes, like feeling good about one's sexuality, having a satisfying, beneficial sexual life -- one that includes pleasure and fun, not just not-pregnancy or not-STIs -- like feeling able to express yourself and your feelings with someone else authentically, like feeling alive in your body and feeling capable and respected.
I don't think we can't present sex positively and treat young people as capable while still sending strong messages about health and public health: in fact, I think without the former the latter will often be ineffective or have its own set of negative consequences, like fear, shame or feeling disempowered. If the messages we send young people about sex don't treat them with respect, aren't honest, don't address consent or make it sound impossible or inconsequential, don't treat the individual as an individual and shortcut complex issues, expecting them to approach sexuality any differently seems a strange expectation, indeed.
Here a few different alternatives to try on for size:
Of course, my favorite approach is avoiding generalized statements like this at all and instead having conversations where I can simply first ASK (or be told) if someone does or does not want to have sex right now, then give more information, and ask more questions, then tailoring what I am saying to what they state their needs and wants to be: if we start there, and work from their answer, it's pretty easy to sidestep all of the problems with these kinds of phrasings. I think it also makes it easier for us to focus as much on what we should be doing as we're focusing on what teens should.
Although I feel a little ridiculous asking this considering I should be more openminded towards sexuality and experimentation, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. I started dating a man 10 months ago. I'm 18, he turned 26 around three weeks ago. He was married before, and she left because of her claiming to have been bored in bed and in general. Since the beginning of our relationship, I stated that I am bisexual and have been as long as I could remember. I asked him about his orientation and he told me that he was straight. No rushed answer, no hysteria. So, I believed him.
Months later--two months ago almost--I mentioned that I had heard that one of his friends had had a gay encounter. He shrugged and told me that he himself had experimented when he was 16, and had sex with another guy from school. He had anal sex, oral sex, and watched straight and transgender porn with the other boy (claiming the transgender porn belonged to the friend). He told me he couldn't kiss the other guy, because he felt repulsed, yet was able to perform oral sex on him.
I hate, hate, hate that phrase. Nearly everywhere I go or look as a young adult sexuality educator anymore, I run into it incessantly.
Let me be clear: I don't hate doing all that we can, to help people of every age to avoid pregnancies or parenting they do not want or do not feel ready for. I'm so glad to do that, and it's a big part of my job at Scarleteen and elsewhere when I work as a sexuality and contraception educator and activist.
Who gets left out, ignored, dismissed or denied when someone states that sex, good sex or real intimacy or love should, can or does only happen within the context of monogamous marriage, or when any given couple has only had one spousal sexual or romantic partner in a lifetime?
How many of those groups are you, or someone you have known, a member of? How many do you think you might be in within your lifetime? Have you ever felt real intimacy and/or had sex you enjoyed and which left you feeling good physically and emotionally while a member of any of those groups, or NOT had any of those things while married? If so, does that make you delusional? Does your reality not exist?
By the by, when restrictions like these to marriage have been protested and changed, those movements have almost always NOT come from the groups of people championing marriage, stating that it is the only right, best thing for everyone. Rather, these changes have usually been made or fought for by progressives who do not share that attitude, and protested, challenged or denied by conservatives -- such as the Defense of Marriage Act here in the United States -- who claim marriage as the only right way, the best way, the ideal we all should share.
When you look at a list like this, it's hard to ignore that in many ways, marriage is a class issue, an issue of privilege and maintaining privilege, and one plenty of people want and have always wanted to keep limited to a given class. That's obvious just by knowing the additional legal privileges and benefits married couples are often given in many countries which unmarried couples are not. It's not a wide-open door for anyone and everyone who want in, and those who champion it above all else are not ignorant to that fact. They are usually fully aware of at least some of these restrictions, and many even support or have supported some or all of them, past or present.
The term "endogamy" means that marriage is restricted to a certain group of people. That term is often applied when discussing, for instance, tribal cultures where only a member of a given tribe is allowed to marry within the tribe. But that term, in many ways, can easily be applied to marriage, full-stop: in many ways, marriage remains, nearly everywhere not big-tent, but endogamic: something only available, when it is even wanted, to certain groups, tribes or individuals.
If marriage is, as we often hear lately, what everyone should be doing or aspiring to, if it's really what some folks want for everyone and really the only right way to happiness and sexual health (even though we know that not to be true) and bliss; if the push for us to get in it is truly coming from a place of love and care, then why is "everyone" such a tiny group of people?
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