April 3rd, 2009

Reverence Where Reverence Is Due

I received a link this week to an editorial published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Sunday that concerns abstinence-only sex education. The article’s author, Stacie Murphy, decided to see what it took to become a Certified Abstinence Educator. Her article describes her experience taking—and passing—the online Certification Exam of the Abstinence Clearinghouse.

Among other things, the article reiterates information to which I have already been exposed as a longtime reproductive rights activist from studies that have concluded that abstinence-only sex education appears not only ineffective but can decrease safer sex practices among young people who have sex because of abstinence-only programs’ propensity to emphasize the failure rates (often inaccurately) of contraceptive methods. As Ms. Murphy writes:


“It makes sense. The assertion that premarital sex will condemn them to a life of poverty, degradation and disease does not align with their experience of a country where more than 95 percent of people have sex before they get married. And condoms? If they don’t work, why use them?”

It seems like it would take charts for me to comprehensively explain the things I find dismaying about government-sponsored abstinence-only sex education. Beyond the medical inaccuracies, blatant ideological and/or religious beliefs are also part of some of the curricula as well as gender stereotypes that are presented as casual understanding. And I’m going to stop there for now because I don’t have charts at the moment and want to address another specific aspect of this in this post.

Because beyond all the (numerous and significant) practical implications I find so disturbing about abstinence-only sex education, there is a basic philosophical premise of the perspective and rhetoric that profoundly doesn’t resonate with me.

Frequently the focus/discussion is on “sex before you get married.” For quite a while I’ve found the “before you get married” part of this rhetoric notable. Before you get married—because, of course, you’re going to get married.

Um…what if you don’t get married (or legally can’t where you choose to live)? What if you don’t want to get married? What if that doesn’t feel like a prominent focus in your life at this time, and you’re not sure it ever will? Does that mean sex is just out of the question for you?

The assertion that these two things are exclusively connected actually makes me feel a bit queasy. The idea of taking something as fundamental, inherent, and personal as sexuality and forcing it into a rigid, arguably arbitrary as far as sex is concerned, social standard seems appalling to me. I am not arguing against marriage. I am not saying people shouldn’t get married, or that marriage is irrelevant, or aiming to denigrate it in any way. I am lamenting the idea that marriage, the social construct, should or would be the predecessor or controller of sexuality, an inextricable, wholly individualized, absolutely fundamental aspect of life itself.

The idea has long seemed comparable to me to an assertion that we may only eat during mealtimes. Do not pay attention to when you are hungry or develop any kind of intimacy or relationship with your body that attunes you to your appetite and guides you in a way that serves you—these are the mealtimes, and they are when you eat. That is what we have decided, and that is the way everyone is to do it.

I am not speaking snarkily or sarcastically; this conflation truly does disturb me. It feels viscerally inappropriate, intrusive, and misguided to me, and once again it seems to denigrate something that appears to me so obviously beautiful, luminous, awe-inspiring, and unspeakably sacred, which is sexuality. Seeing it undermined by simple virtue of not being recognized and appreciated as such—or only being appreciated within certain social and externally controlling confines—has been known to feel heartbreaking to me, and that is how it feels right now as I type this.

However, it occurs to me that part of “heartbreaking” is “heart,” and I just noticed I am feeling there right now. The joy, beauty, light, glory, love of all of us, that we all are, that is life, that sexuality is purely and luminously within.

…Whew. That all being said, today is a bustling day in erotica blogland — Erobintica is up on the Blow Hard Tour 2009, and today is Donna George Storey‘s stop on the Swing! anthology blog tour!

Namaste and love to all.

Love,
Emerald

“We’re born to shimmer, we’re born to shine, we’re born to radiate, we’re born to live, we’re born to love…”
-Shawn Mullins “Shimmer”

9 Responses “Reverence Where Reverence Is Due”

  1. Incredible, isn’t it, that the government of the largest and most imitated nation in the developed-out-the-ears West inculcates medieval style attitudes toward sexuality.

  2. Erobintica says:

    Emerald – great post. I’ll come back and read it again and make comments – so many running around in my head.

  3. Emerald says:

    Hi Jeremy and Robin. Thank you, Robin, and please feel free! I’ll be out of town this weekend and not sure how much I’ll be online, but of course I would love to read them when I get back.

    And Jeremy, indeed — especially ironic that we don’t seem to see the connection between that and our skyrocketing teen birth rates…. :: Sigh ::

  4. Erobintica says:

    Well, finally had time to read the editorial – abstinence clown? machetes? taxpayer money paying for this???? The sad thing is this … it doesn’t surprise me in the least.

    Oh, and yeah, definitely, premarital sex absolutely means you’ll never “have a happy marriage or family life.” I guess we’ve been miserable for the past 27 years without knowing it … because, OMG, we had premarital sex! And of course, that’s why my oldest daughter and her boyfriend of almost seven years (nope, no commitment there) are … living “in sin.” I’ve failed horribly, I know.

    All sarcasm aside, one thing that stands out over every other reason why I think the whole “wait till you’re married” thing is … screwed up, is that there never was a time when everyone waited. That’s a myth. Oh, some do, and at times more did than didn’t. But all too often some of those long-married couples, the ones with their umpteenth anniversary picture in the paper, had premarital sex. It’s just they could never admit it. And in many cases I bet they felt shamed even though nobody knew.

    And it’s shame that is perpetuated by all this abstinence-only bullshit. If you buy this hook, line & sinker, and then go on to “give in” to that raging sex-drive, and THEN feel shame – you’ve set yourself up for a lifetime of always feeling not-quite-right. Why are we doing this to kids? Some of us grew up in dysfunctional households where shame about sex and sexuality severely messed up lives.

    Grrrrrrrrrr.

    See why I couldn’t quickly rattle off a comment Emerald? Ignorance really gets under my skin.

    *Gets down off soapbox and grabs a good smutty book of the shelf to calm down with*
    ;-)

  5. ste says:

    that was a great post.

    I’ve dispaired at that abstinence-only attitude in the past, but I actually don’t think I’ve thought about it from the “what if you can’t/don’t want to get married” angle before. it seems like such a fundamental point now.

    what changes are there going to be to all this under the new administration? i’m assuming that there will be some, because Obama seems too rational and in touch with reality to let things continue the way they are.

  6. Emerald says:

    Thank you, ste, and thank you again for coming by. I really appreciate (and am flattered by) your comment about the way you’ve perceived the issue in question.

    Re your final paragraph, President Obama has indeed indicated his support of reproductive rights and specifically supported comprehensive sexuality education while he was in the U.S. Senate as a co-sponsor of the Prevention First Act. One of the things the federal government did under the Bush administration was devote enormous amounts of money to federally funded abstinence-only sex education; the amount spent on such programs increased exponentially during President Bush’s tenure. A bill has been introduced called the REAL Act that, if passed, would federally fund comprehensive sex education in schools, which right now does not exist (federal funding for comprehensive sex education, that is).

    Some changes have already occurred under the current administration. One of the first things President Obama did in office was repeal the global gag rule, which denied funding to international organizations that offered information about (much less performed) abortion. The administration also recently announced the reinstatement of funding to UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), which had been suspended during Bush’s tenure. While not directly about sex education, these are indicators of President Obama’s support of reproductive rights in general and thus seem to bode well for what you asked about the topic at hand. Those steps, of course, are things his administration can do independent of Congress, whereas the REAL Act is dependent on how it fares in the House and Senate as well.

    Thank you again so much for coming by, reading, and commenting, ste. It’s a pleasure to have you here. :)

  7. Emerald says:

    Ah, I hear you, Robin. A fascinating point about how people have been having sex outside of marriage, well, pretty much always.

    And indeed, I appreciate your offering as well about sex and shame. That is something that I really do find just heartbreaking. :(

    Lastly, yes, I certainly understand not feeling compelled to rattle off a “quick” response. Thank you for reading and for coming back by again to comment!

  8. ste says:

    Thank you for that post, Emerald, that was all very interesting. And heartening too – three cheers for access to information and education! I was pleased to see back in January that the global gag rule was on Obama’s list of things he wanted to overturn as soon as he could once he took office.

    I found this article about an anti-discrimination revision to the REAL Act, which was good to see.
    (hope that link worked!)

  9. Emerald says:

    Link worked, thanks ste. Indeed, abstinence-only sex ed curricula has been lamented for completely disregarding gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender issues and safety, which would occur by its very definition since it is centered around heterosexual marraige (sex within it, and not having sex before — or elsewhere outside of — it). That would have been one of the things denoted on the charts I mentioned, heh. ;)

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