Clearing up confusions and acne

The Puberty Basics lessons included in Changes, Changes, Changes are as follows:  Physical Anatomy And Puberty Changes Experiencing Puberty How Hormones Affect Puberty Changes Life Is A Roller Coaster Ride Puberty Sketchionary Pop Goes Puberty Cleaning Up Misconceptions About Acne Good And Secret Touch As I read over this list and considered which lesson to… Read more »

What are the unknown unknowns about puberty?

I am still in Zimbabwe this week, and I am still listening, learning, and taking in this amazing country and people. I may blog about my experiences here, but I feel the need to just drink everything in right now rather than talking about it quite yet.   In the meantime, I am going to… Read more »

It does indeed take a village

Moving away from Sex Ed in the Digital Age, but staying with our week’s theme on how to encourage intergenerational conversations about sexuality education, we are picking up a lesson from Teaching Safer Sex. Regardless of the age of the participants in this lesson plan, they get to have a really good conversation about responsibility…. Read more »

From Introduction to Depth

Following up on yesterday’s post on parenting in the digital age, today’s lesson plan also comes from Sex Ed in the Digital Age. It takes yesterday’s topic and builds on it, engaging parents (and professionals) on a deeper level of analysis of adolescent developmental needs. I love this focus on adolescent needs and how, when,… Read more »

Parenting in the Digital Age

I am away this week, working with the United Nations Population Fund in Zimbabwe to create parent-child communication materials. I’ve posted a little bit about materials for or about parents here in the past, but this week it will be my focus. The lesson today comes from Sex Ed in the Digital Age. It’s an… Read more »

Sex Ed & Culture, and the Sex/Sex Ed Double-Standard

Ontario Sex Ed Update! Ontario, Canada’s new sex ed curriculum, which we reported back in February would include issues of consent, premiered two weeks ago. The Windsor Star reported on March 8th that a poll released by Forum Research showed a 49 percent approval rate for the new curriculum, with 34 percent of Ontarians disapporving,… Read more »

Crossing that great divide

The last lesson for this week focused on parents and other adults comes from Making Sense of Abstinence. I was pretty sure I had already written about this lesson plan, but I can’t find the blog post, so I guess not! It aims to support youth in beginning (or continuing, I suppose) an intergenerational conversation… Read more »

Back in the game, part II

Yesterday I wrote about women’s second sexual wind in mid and later life, and today the focus is on men. The assumptions that exist in our popular culture about male sexuality during the aging process is not a particularly rosy picture. Popular opinion seems to hold that good sex for men requires a strong, firm,… Read more »

Back in the game

There are two lesson plans in Older, Wiser, Sexually Smarter that are called Get a Second Wind. The first is for women, the second for men, and the focus is sexuality at mid and later life. Today and tomorrow I’m going to highlight these two lessons. The assumption that older people slow down sexually is… Read more »

Who’s laughing?

I love it that the second lesson plan in Older, Wiser, Sexually Smarter is all about sexual humor. Humans turn to humor so often when we feel unsettled, uncomfortable, or unsure about how we should be approaching something. And so our extravagant repertoire of sexual jokes has no shortage of jokes about sexuality and aging…. Read more »

Beginning the conversation again, now that you’re older

I’ve been thinking about the illustrious Peggy Brick recently, and her amazing and groundbreaking work with older adults and sexuality. So this week we are delving into Older, Wiser, Sexually Smarter. This manual, written in 2009, includes 30 sex ed lesson plans for older adults. I’ve pulled a few lesson plans from this manual into… Read more »

Once you know you want it, how do you go about getting it?

Yesterday’s post was all about decision making and values clarification about abstinence. Today’s lesson is for young people who want to move forward with abstinence in the immediate future. When someone chooses to remain abstinent, they need to talk with current or potential romantic partners about that decision in a way that offers love, support,… Read more »

Values based instead of abstinence based sexual decision-making

It’s time, today and tomorrow, to dive into supporting students in re-visioning abstinence. The choice to refrain from sexual activity is such an important one! It remains unclear to me why people would restrict this opportunity to people who were willing to do it all the way until they were married. Instead, I think we… Read more »

Abstinence…and masturbation

Abstinence means many things to many people. Among other things, it may or may not include masturbation. Being sexual with yourself carries none of the risks of being sexual with another person (physically or emotionally) and has loads of benefits. And so, included in Making Sense of Abstinence, is this awesome lesson on masturbation. (The title… Read more »

Check YES or NO

Oh abstinence-only-until-marriage…you disappoint me so much. Seeing this job, this work that I love so much forced into a mold that is so distorting of what is good and meaningful about sexuality makes me sad. Which is why, given that I am here, in Texas, where so many students receive poorly conceived, distorted understandings of… Read more »

What’s a digital voice sound like?

After yesterday’s lesson about technology as a form of sexual and romantic communication from Teaching Safer Sex, I thought I would pull lessons for the rest of this week from Sex Ed in the Digital Age. This brand new, two volume manual by Carolyn Cooperman (edited by Susan Milstein) delves into technology and sexuality in… Read more »

Talking sexting

Last week we dove into the communication section of Teaching Safer Sex – but I missed the last lesson plan in this section, so I’m going to catch up on it now! This lesson plan happens to be about one of my favorite subject matters: sex and technology. Because so much romantic and sexual communication… Read more »

A guide

Every now and then, the media gets it right, and that’s a pretty great time to celebrate what can happen, what kind of information, can get out to people in need of that information. Last week, that exact thing happened! Bill Taverner, our Executive Director over here at the Center for Sex Education, was interviewed… Read more »

Oh condom, my condom!

Coming off of yesterday’s post encouraging participants to talk about safer sex in general, today’s lesson plan from Teaching Safer Sex is about condoms and considering the reasons people don’t talk about them, the cultural stigma around them, and how to bring them up and talk about them anyway.   CONDOM TALK Practice Makes Perfect… Read more »