pizza and poetry

So, if you know me at all (or have read any of my blogposts), you'll know that I'm big into comprehensive sex ed. If you didn't know this, please go read more of my blog, because it's definitely a big deal to me and I think you should know about it!

Well anyway, I have been spending quite a bit of time with my fellow board members thinking through the way we are educating our youth at the youth correctional facility here in Omaha for the "do juSTIce" project. I've drawn on my background in "Sunny D's" and "PHIVE-O" and my work with Advocates for Youth to make the presentations exciting, but factual. Accessible to students, yet informative.

I've also stumbled upon a few other resources that I think are good. One completely re-frames the way we talk about sex. I think it's a healthier way to think about sex as well. And of course, it comes from someone at a Ted Talk (nerd alert, anyone?). The other is a blog post from a high school English teacher about talking to her students about rape. It was interesting to read about their perceptions about what is and what isn't considered rape.

So here goes.

Al Vernacchio. You are genius. I hope to someday meet you. 

The current predominant metaphor for sex is the game of baseball (pitcher, catcher, switch hitter, strike out, etc). This is heterosexist and competitive. There are always winners and losers in baseball and so with this metaphor, there are winners and losers in sex. It's not a healthy way to think about sexuality (not to mention it perpetuates the culture of rape that is rampant in the US).

And now enter the pizza.

Pizza is enjoyable. It can be consumed whenever and however you want pizza. We eat pizza with, not in opposition to, each other. It requires open lines of communication..."What type of pizza should we have tonight?" and "Do we want the usual tonight or something more adventurous?" There are so many types/toppings of pizza, that cause "difference" instead of "rightness and wrongness" of the pizza experience. Pizza is tailored to the people enjoying it. With pizza, no one "wins," but you move towards the question of satisfaction. It gives the people involved the power to say "no more" or "let's try something else next time."

This pizza metaphor is not heterosexist dominant nor is it competitive. It moves away from the language that perpetuates rape as the victims fault and that only one partner is in control of the situation (but still allows for one person to be "in charge" if that's the flavor of pizza you're going for). It's non-judgmental and open. Baseball is all commands. Under the pizza model, they are all questions that the people experiencing the pizza get to decide the answers to. My favorite quotation from the video is below...it's about implementing the pizza metaphor into our schools for comprehensive sexuality education.

We could create education that invites people to think about their own desires, to make deliberate decisions about what they want, to talk about it with their partners, and to ultimately look for, not some external outcome, but for what feels satisfying.  

With the pizza metaphor, sex no longer is the dirty, nasty thing that you do behind closed doors with someone that you love very, very much. Pizza is satisfying.

And now a little poetry.

So Ms. Norman's lesson was about deconstructing an ambiguous poem. As it turns out, the students thought the poem was about rape (admittedly, I did to when I read it). This then sparked conversation about the Steubenville, OH rape case that got quite a bit of press over the past few months.

As it turns out, the students didn't really make the connection that the boys convicted of raping the girl were, in fact, rapists according to the law. They just understood that they were athletes that were going to lose their scholarships (discussing our culture's idol worship of athletics is for another post...) and they thought that was unfair. The action of the boys never once entered their minds--the media coverage of the case is more than partially to blame on this one. But it's not just the media's fault. Adolescent brains are actually not wired to critically evaluate information on this level, but instead, just repeat the news that they have heard. Sometimes it's hard to remember that those neural connections are not yet formed when we expect students to miraculously understand the weight of situations such as these without prompted discussion from an adult. Ms. Norman writes,

My students are still young enough, that mostly they just spout what they have learned, and they have learned that absent a no, the yes is implied....Standing in front of my classroom and stating that a woman's clothing choice is never permission to rape her should not be a radical act. But only a few heads nodded in agreement. Most were stunned, like this was a completely new thought. 

Thankfully though, some young people get it.

"Ms. Norman, you mean a woman walking down the street naked is not her inviting sex? How will I know she wants to have sex?" A surprisingly bold voice came out of a girl in the back "You'll know when she says, you want to have sex?!"

Unfortunately, the statistics point towards these students "getting it" because they, or someone close to them, has been sexually assaulted. They had to learn the lesson the terrible way. But for others, this issue is never discussed. It's the elephant in the room (and I mean an astronomically large elephant).

We need to be teaching our young people--it really couldn't hurt if the adults learned it too--about what consent really means. Ms. Norman links to this blog about what the definitions of consent are.

Consent is not "well, he didn't say no."

Consent is not "I guess so."

Consent is not given from someone too drunk to stand.

Consent is not something wrung from someone after weeks of badgering.

Consent is not "giving in."

Consent is an enthusiastic, unequivocal yes.

Consent is asking at every step "Is this okay? Does this feel good? Can I touch you here?" and getting an unequivocally positive response before proceeding.

Consent is asking permission every, single time because consent given once is not consent given for all time. 

We can't continue to assume that students understand what the definition of consent is and is not. The stats are astounding (and horrifying)--1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men are sexually assaulted each year in the US (http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims). That works out to be about 20 million Americans who have been the victims of sexual assault.

Ignoring the stats about STD transmission and unplanned pregnancies (for another blogpost, perhaps), it's obvious that the way we are currently talking and teaching about sex isn't healthy or effective. A paradigm shift is needed ASAP.

And we over at "do juSTIce" are trying to be part of that change. Let's actually educate and empower our youth to make healthy decisions for themselves. This conversation is not giving adolescents and young adults an automatic "go ahead" to having sex with anyone and everyone, but rather, a way to make an educated decision about their health and desires when they feel ready. As my good friend and role model Judy Sandeen says, "This is information for a lifetime."

Anyone want to go for some pizza?

The poetry and rape discussion is from Abby Norman's blog Accidental Devotion. The particular post I referenced can be found at the hyperlink in-text or here: http://accidentaldevotional.com/2013/03/19/the-day-i-taught-how-not-to-rape/.

The quotation about consent can be found on the Faith and Feminism blog by Dianna Anderson. The particular post referenced is: http://diannaeanderson.net/blog/2064. (Admittedly, I have not yet read more of Dianna's blog, but I plan to in the coming weeks. My guess is that I'll find many interesting talking points from her writing.)