I’d like to invite you on a journey through time. Take a moment to remember your high school years. It could have been not that long ago or your memories might be distant. For now, do your best to remember what you learned in school about human sexuality. My guess is it was mostly cisgender, heteronormative and assumed that all people who engage in sexual activity are in fully able bodies. It may have included a lesson on caring for “children” in the form of an egg or sack of flour. Later, when you were raising your own children, you probably realized how useless these exercises were when words akin to “mommy’s face is not for licking” or “please don’t eat ketchup off your toes” came out of your mouth. (Except maybe when an entire sack of flour ended up all over the kitchen.) Your sexuality education most likely didn’t include any information about pornography or sexual violence, especially if it was before the internet. It may have included abstinence-only teaching and it was not and, in 28 states, is still not required to be based on any factual information whatsoever.
Public school sexuality education has improved over the decades and, since 2011, it has become more inclusive, educating children and youth of all genders, sexualities, abilities and more. The problem is that although providing sexuality education is required in many schools and there are basic standards available, individual school boards and state governments can choose what is taught, even if it isn’t correct or doesn’t provide a complete picture of human sexuality. In 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 43% of high schools and 18% of middle schools taught all 16 of its recommended topics to give students a well-rounded sexuality education. The CDC’s School Health Policies and Practices Study estimates that high schoolers spend about 6.2 hours on sexuality education in a school year and middle schoolers spend 5.4 hours. That’s probably less time than youth spend on YouTube in a week, let alone a year.
Why, might you ask, are we talking about this at UUCF? You might recall looking back at your own journey, recognizing gaps in your knowledge and thinking, “But I figured it out and everything ended up fine.” Fine can be OK, but the bigger the gaps in knowledge, the more likely something fell through (leading to fact finding from less-than-reputable or healthy sources).
UUCF and Unitarian Universalism in general don’t think that “fine” is enough when it comes to a person’s sexual health. That’s exactly why we need the Our Whole Lives (OWL) program, namely the intensive high school OWL weekend UUCF has planned for Feb. 18 and 19. OWL ensures that all genders, sexualities, expressions and abilities are represented in its sexuality education. It also covers how to have healthy relationships and how to recognize if they become unhealthy. Providing factual and inclusive sexuality education is, I believe, an act of social justice. When youth understand that we are all sexual beings with dignity and worth, the choice to say “no” or “yes” is based on love and acceptance instead of coercion and fear. And that is worth filling in the gaps.
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