Tag Archives: Youth ministry

16 is not 16 is not 16: of adolescence, different rates of maturation, and Abby Sunderland

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There’s been much talk this week about the adventures of Abby Sunderland, the Southern California 16 year-old whose attempt to sail solo around the world ended when her boat lost its mast in the Indian Ocean last Thursday. For several hours, there was fear — much of it hyped by the media — that Abby was “lost at sea”. The story is on its way to a happy ending, as Abby is now on a fishing boat headed for Madagascar, and, eventually, home to her family.

The debate, of course, is whether her parents ought to have allowed her to make this journey. (Her brother had undertaken a similar adventure a few years ago when he was just a little bit older than Abby.) That Abby had the technical skill to handle her boat is not in question; what befell her could easily have befallen an experienced sailor thrice her age. But lots of teenagers have the capacities of adults, but are still denied all the freedoms of adulthood. We all know 15 year-olds who know more about politics than their parents, but we don’t let 15 year-olds vote. We know, certainly, that plenty of 17 year-olds are capable of making responsible decisions about alcohol — and that plenty of 27 year-olds aren’t.

It’s not news that our lines of demarcation that separate children from adults are somewhat arbitrary. Whether we draw those lines at 16 (Austrians can vote at that age, which appalls many Americans; Americans can drive at that age, which appalls many Europeans) or 21 (a ridiculously late drinking age in the eyes of many around the world), any sensible person recognizes that some of those beneath the line are capable of handling the responsibilities that at least of some of those above that line are not.

Sensible people, however, recognize that society must draw lines somewhere. (This debate is as old as classical Athens, if not older.) We can’t test every young person to see if they are “ready” to vote, or to drink, or to have sex, in quite the same way that we issue driver’s licenses. And even with driver’s licenses, while turning 16 doesn’t automatically grant the right to have a license (the test must be passed), being under 16 automatically bars a young person from be licensed.

These lines are drawn based upon many things: history, tradition, collective assumptions about risk and maturity. These lines shift based on social trends and evolving beliefs about young people, rights, and responsibility. In the Vietnam era, a growing sense that it was unjust to send 18 year-olds off to die in wars while not permitting them to vote led to the passage of the 26th Amendment; a decade later, anxiety about other risks led to a Reagan-era mandate to raise the national drinking age from 18 to 21. These shifts don’t always make sense; they lead to the obvious silliness that a young soldier can operate a machine gun in combat but can’t buy a beer. That kind of arbitrariness grates. But the alternative to arbitrary line-drawing is far more grating: a kind of intellectual or maturational means testing that would be subject to abuse and overt politicization in a hearbeat.

We have no laws regarding the minimum age to operate sailboats on the high seas. (They are unlikely to come, as they would require an international convention that would end up banning teens from working in the fishing industry.) Abby’s parents broke no laws, but in the minds of many, they broke an unwritten rule about the diligence parents ought to show in protecting their children from harm. As a youth leader and a father, I’m emotionally conflicted about that charge. On the one hand, I can’t imagine being comfortable sending my own child off around the world on a sailboat by herself. But if I’m honest, I know full well that protectiveness won’t vanish when my Heloise turns 18; I’d worry just as much if she were 18 as if she were a few months younger. Lines of demarcation don’t have much effect on the heart. Continue reading →

Holly dyed her hair: more on myths of female frailty, our fear of women’s anger, and what happens when the truth comes out

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I posted earlier this year against the “myth of female frailty” and the lie that “one mistake will ruin your life”. The topic of that myth arose again this week when I met with one of my former All Saints youth group kids, “Holly.”

Holly, whom I’ve known since she was in eighth grade, is now headed into her senior year of high school; she’s 17. When I first met Holly, and indeed for the next several years, Holly “presented” outwardly as the pretty, outgoing, poised and popular blonde whose passage through adolescence seems almost unfairly graceful. Holly was much sought after as a friend (and more) by boys and girls alike; at our Wednesday night youth group meetings, I often saw not-very-subtle attempts by kids of both sexes to sit on “Holly’s couch” and be near her.

Of course, Holly was far more than the walking embodiment of a stock American stereotype. Not only was she exceptionally bright and a particularly talented writer, her childhood had been touched by tragedy and loss to a degree that set her well apart from most of her peers. A few — a very few — of her friends got to know the depth of that loss and its impact on Holly’s life; I was one of the small group of adults to whom she also regularly turned. I watched her struggle with the disconnect between how the rest of the world perceived her and how she felt on the inside, and we talked often about her frustration with the realization that she was the object of desire, admiration, jealousy, and envy when for the most part, she felt out of place and frequently lonely. Holly’s is not an unfamiliar story — at its most extreme, call it the “Richard Cory” phenomenon after that famous Edward Arlington Robinson poem so loved by generations of misperceived adolescents.

This summer, Holly broke up with her first serious boyfriend, got her first lead in a play, and let go of a great many of her old friends. When I met with her earlier this week, her long blonde hair was mahogany brown. Despite the heat, she wasn’t wearing the short skirts that had been her trademark since junior high school. She wore corduroy pants, a t-shirt, and a vest. Not a trace of make-up on her face, but when we met at a local coffee shop, there was a sense of real happiness behind her eyes. Holly’s making changes; the outside shift reflects an inner transformation — and the brunette tresses a greater willingness to expose to the world the darker, more complex aspects of her personality. Continue reading →

The form and content of kisses

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One of my former youth group kids, “Holly” contacted me last week. Holly’s 17, an aspiring theater actress, and just landed her first lead role in a summer production. She has a boyfriend, Ferdinand — and Ferdinand isn’t happy about the part Holly’s taken. In one scene in the play, Holly’s character needs to kiss her “husband”; it’s an indispensable part of the show. Ferdinand has been in a funk ever since he found out Holly was going to do the show, and until he relented last week, threatened a break-up if she went ahead with her plans to take the role.

Holly and I talked on Friday about her relationship, the problem of ultimata, and what it meant to play a part on stage. This little quarrel raises some important issues about trust and fidelity, of course, but also about the vital distinction between the form and the content of a physical act. (I blogged at length about “form” and “content” in this post about faith and sexuality from July 2008.) To be concerned with form is to be concerned with a particular act, like kissing; to be concerned with content is to be concerned with what that act signifies to the two people involved. These aren’t mutually exclusive concerns, of course, but understanding the distinction is vital, as I explained to Holly.

For example, touching another person’s genital region generally has the form of sexual intimacy. At the same time, there’s a world of difference (one does rather hope) between the way a woman might be touched by her OB/GYN and by her lover. Even if both doctor and boyfriend (or girlfriend) touch her vagina in an act of similar form, the content of the touching is radically different. Even Ferdinand, surely, doesn’t object to Holly seeing a physician. Anyone who’s been to the doctor intuitively grasps the form/content distinction.

Another example lies in art: in a figure drawing course, one is often required to draw a a picture inspired by a live nude model. In our puritanical culture, where the body is so often concealed, steadily gazing at a naked human being has the form of something sexual. But the content of the act (drawing from a nude figure) isn’t sexual; the concern of the student artist is usually something like “How the hell am I going to get that calf muscle right?” and not “Oh my goodness, I’m so turned on right now.” That doesn’t mean sexual arousal can’t happen in a figure drawing class — it may. But sexual arousal can come in any number of unexpected ways and in unexpected places. It would be unreasonable, I think, for a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a spouse to say to their beloved “I don’t want you taking a studio art class where you draw naked people”, just as it would be unreasonable to say “I don’t want your doctor touching your private parts.” Form and content are, in these instances, distinct.

And the same, of course, is true in Holly’s situation. Those who have little experience with acting may marvel at the apparent ease in which movie stars portray passion on the screen; one reason why actresses in particular (Halle Berry, Kate Winslet, etc.) win Oscars after making films in which they did explicit scenes is because we marvel that anyone, particularly a woman, could so expertly separate form and content. (Winslet, whose husband is the director Sam Mendes, has talked often about the inability of some folks to accept her ability — and her spouse’s — to separate the brilliant realism of her “form” from the content of her heart.)

An actor is as much a working professional as a doctor. Each may be called into close proximity with the naked flesh of another human being as part of their professional responsibilities.. Obviously, Holly isn’t a professional actress yet, and she isn’t doing a nude love scene: she’s merely kissing an actor on the lips. Everyone will stay clothed; it will be at most a PG-rated act. But Holly, who is head-over-heels in love with Ferdinand, is quite clear about her own ability to distinguish between the form and the content of what it is that she will do. And it seems as if her beau is slowly coming around to seeing things her way.

Of course, in a romantic relationship one generally wants form and content to go together. When we make love with a partner, for most of us the goal is to have the thoughts in our heads and the feelings in our hearts be radically congruent with what we are doing with our bodies. Though that isn’t a universal ideal, it’s certainly a widespread desire. For many of us, monogamy is also an ideal. We don’t want our partners being sexual with other people. But we need to understand what Kate Winslet understands: not everything that has the outer appearance of being sexual really is.

When two actors feign passion, their on-screen or onstage kisses and caresses are no more authentically sexual than a pelvic exam down at the women’s clinic. That doesn’t mean co-stars can’t fall in love with each other; they often do. But when two teenage actors in a summer stock production embark on a romance, it’s usually because the experience of working together on something each believes in so passionately is itself a powerful aphrodisiac. Onstage kisses are hardly the cause.

Vermont gets it right again: adolescent sexting, adult prurience, and the need for some common sense

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As has been widely reported, Vermont (the first state in the notion to approve same-sex marriage through the legislative process) is now considering decriminalizing “sexting”, the much-ballyhooed practice by which teens take and send explicit images of themselves using their cell phones. The absurd prospect of having teenage girls arrested on child pornography charges for sending topless photos of themselves to prospective beaux has encouraged the sturdy Vermonters to do the eminently sensible thing; as Salon writes, “sanity prevails.”

From the standpoint of a teacher and a youth worker, the furor about “sexting” seems tinged with both media hype and an unpleasantly salacious curiosity about adolescent sexuality. The chief concern I have is with the emotional well-being of the young people who do share naked pictures of themselves; embarrassment is powerful and regret is real, particularly when — as so often can happen — an image meant for one person is shared with many more. I’m also concerned with the dynamics under which sexting takes place: to what degree do the young women (and, more rarely, young men) who take and send these photos with their phones feel pressured to do so? Coercion, peer pressure, and individual agency are key issues in any discussion of teen sexuality. Safe and responsible adults need to be able to initiate conversations with teens about their private lives — and the misuse of child pornography statutes to prosecute adolescent “sexters” is an ironclad guarantor that those conversations will not take place!

The Vermont law, as proposed, wisely distinguishes between a 15 year-old sending a naked picture to another 15 year-old and a 15 year-old sending that same picture to a 35 year-old she’s met online. In the latter case, the law could still be used, as we would want it to be, to prosecute an adult who solicits nude pictures from a minor. The minor would not be charged. Make sure that adults understand that soliciting and knowingly receiving sexually explicit photographs from minors is a crime. Apply that law with a recognition that a relationship between an 18 year-old and a 17 year-old is not dangerously exploitative (despite the minor-adult disparity) in a way that a relationship between a 17 year-old and a 28 year-old almost certainly is. The law, in other words, needs to center the emotional, sexual, and physical safety of young people; it does not need to center the scandalized indignation of adults.

In January, in a post about the “right to a past”, I touched on this issue. I’ve also touched recently on the issue of adolescent resilience, in a post written contra the “one mistake will ruin your life” narrative. To the extent that “sexting” is a reality rather than media-hyped phenomenon, it’s important for us to recognize the potentially coercive aspects of this adolescent innovation. But it’s also important that we avoid the lurid, exploitative hysteria that so often accompanies discussions of teen sexuality. As long as young people know that adult concern for them is rooted less in an obsession with their chastity and more in an interest in helping them develop healthy, mutually satisfying relationships, teens will be open with us about their lives. If we emphasize that foolish or impulsive decisions don’t necessarily need to lead to enduring shame or familial rejection, if we emphasize that our mistakes are character-building rather than soul-scarring, we empower young people to make better choices and recover quickly from the humiliation that is, in the end, the chief danger inherent in the “sexting” phenomenon.

As Vermont, so the nation. May it be so quickly.

Exposing the abstinence agenda: a review of “The Purity Myth”

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I got my copy of Jessica Valenti’s newest book, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women last week. If the editor-in-chief of Feministing continues to crank out books at this pace, I’m going to suspect that she harbors a secret Calvinist work ethic. Four books in two years is a remarkable achievement.

The Obama Administration offers hope that the long national embarrassment known as the abstinence-only movement is soon to be finished. Early signs are that funding for more comprehensive sex education will eventually come through, and that government support for the “purity movement” — a hallmark of the Bush years — is at long last coming to an end (though not rapidly enough for many of us.) Jessica’s timely, accessible book looks at the damage wrought by the “purity myth” and at the noxious agenda which hides behind the cry that “True Love Waits.” Her book went to press too early to include the most recent findings on the failures of the abstinence movement, which is a pity; all the best research indicates that a focus on “purity” has been an unmitigated disaster, leading to a spike rather than in a decline in unplanned pregnancies among American teenagers.

In The Purity Myth, Valenti employs the same accessible, conversational style — punctuated by hilarious asides and personal anecdotes — that characterized her first book, Full Frontal Feminism. As several hundred of my students have told me since I first started assigning FFF a year and a half ago, that style works to engage them and to challenge them in a way that a more formally-written text would not. This is not to suggest that my students are incapable of wrestling with books written in academic prose — but when it comes to a subject as personal as contemporary sexual ethics, a breezy conversational tone lends considerable legitimacy to the argument being made. And that tone and that legitimacy are on full display once again in this wonderful book.

The Purity Myth has many strengths, but perhaps the central theme of the text is the thorough and devastating debunking of the notion that a woman’s worth is in any way connected to the amount of sexual experience she has had. For teen girls, bombarded as they are by the twin lies of the abstinence movement and the crass, pornified “Girls Gone Wild” media culture, there’s a desperate need for sound, sensible, compassionate messages that emphasize the simple message that a woman’s sexuality belongs, in the end, to her and to her alone. It is not the property of a father or a future husband (Valenti’s take on “purity balls”, where Dads “date” their daughters and pledge to safeguard their purity, is chilling — particularly for me as a first-time papa to a baby girl). It is not the property of the culture, it is not the property of predatory boys, it is hers. Continue reading →

Kissing rules

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Amber at Prettier than Napoleon gets the cap tap for linking to three posts about kissing, including this one from the New York Times: Who Changes the Kissing Rules? Daniel Hamermesh writes:

A female friend who I hadn’t seen in several months and I greeted each other yesterday with the usual hug and one-cheek kiss. If I had done this in 1970 I would have been looked on as really weird, or I might even have been slapped.

The social norm on kissing has changed in the U.S.; and the norm elsewhere is different: In much of Europe the two-cheek greeting between friends of the opposite sex is standard.

On my first return trip to the Netherlands, I assumed that two-cheek kissing was the norm there. That nearly cost me a broken nose, as the norm there is now the three-cheek greeting kiss. My Dutch friend tells me that the norm changed in the 1980’s or so.

Why do norms change? Does some highly visible individual start the new custom? Do we adopt it from elsewhere (which can’t explain the Dutch three-cheek kiss), so that we Americans might soon be doing an Arab or Latin male-to-male hug/kiss?

I’m a physically affectionate person, raised at least partly in a physically affectionate family. Though my mother’s family was, in keeping with WASP tradition, less demonstrative, my father (raised by central European ethnic Jews) was always a hugger — and a kisser. I grew up taking the kisses from both my parents for granted, and was rather surprised when I realized, perhaps around first grade, that while other mothers kissed both their children and fathers kissed their daughters, mine was the only Papa who seemed to be publicly kissing his sons. Indeed, my only memories of squirming away from any adult touch in my entire childhood came as a result of my embarrassment at my father’s kisses. Dad always kissed me on the cheek or (less often) on the head, and I was very eager to discourage this behavior in public, for fear of being teased by other boys.

In time, of course, I came to appreciate my father’s demonstrativeness. Some of my cousins on my mother’s side grew up shaking hands with their fathers and no more; I know of two brothers who first hugged their fathers, awkwardly, on their wedding days. I’m more than willing to overthrow WASP convention for the sake of manifesting my adoration on my children of both sexes; from the time they are small, my kids are going to be kissed.

I’ve run, over the years, into many subcultures of male kissing. With the gay male buddies I made in college, I began to hug and kiss them much as I did my female friends; these were not sexual kisses but simply signs of affection used primarily at “hello” and “goodbye”. Even among some of my gay friends, there was a clear self-consciousness about the function of these platonic smooches — there was an awareness, sometimes remarked upon, that we were doing something counter-cultural. And for ostensibly straight men to hug and kiss gay men was, at least in my circle of friends in the Bay Area in the mid-to-late 1980s, a sign of one’s comfort level with one’s own sexuality and masculinity. To be uncomfortable with hugging and kissing gay men was as clear a marker of insecurity as trembling hands and knocking knees.

My wife and I study at the Kabbalah Centre. In the Kabbalah community, I’ve met loads of Israelis — and found myself delighted with that particular culture’s kissing protocol. Men and women kiss each other on two cheeks (but not three), and men often kiss each other on one cheek as well. Israeli men, particularly former soldiers, are not renowned for either androgyny or subtlety; it’s a delight to watch these lads of all ages demonstrate so much physical affection towards one another. I’ve hugged and kissed a lot of men since I came to the Centre, and it’s a comfortable and safe culture in which to be immersed.

In youth ministry, I often follow the “if it moves, hug it” philosophy. I say “often” rather than “always” because I recognize that while most young people are (whether they know it or not) hungry for safe and affectionate touch from adults whom they have grown to trust, I know that others (for any number of reasons ranging from abuse to autism to simply not being that sort of kid) experience most embraces as violating. I trust my instincts, and don’t foist affection on those whom I don’t know well.

But those boys and girls who do want hugs can always have them from me, and sometimes – this depends on the kid and the situation — a kiss as well. With teens I work with, the only place I generally kiss is on the forehead. It can function, in the right setting (particularly after a talk) as a kind of benediction. When I was in college, a priest who mentored me kissed me a few times on my forehead — I experienced it as nonsexual, utterly non-violating, and appropriately intimate. It was what I needed. I don’t kiss most young people with whom I work, mind you, but sometimes (again, trusting those ENFP instincts) I do.

The rules about kissing are many and varied, and as the Times piece points out, always in flux between and within cultures. I’m a happy kisser, though even I have qualms about kissing anyone other than romantic partners on the lips. I know families in which parents and children and siblings kiss on the lips; I have friends who kiss each other without the slightest sexual intent on the lips. Somehow, for me, the lips are a charged erogenous zone in the way no other part of the body above the neck can be. I’ll kiss foreheads and cheeks (and, much less often, usually by accident, noses). But I will do all that I can to avoid kissing anyone other than my wife on the mouth, though I won’t push a friend away in wrath if he or she drops a peck below my nose and above my chin. It’s an artificial and arbitrary boundary, to be sure, like all such boundaries, but it’s mine. But even in this, I am inconsistent, as I happily permit dogs and chinchillas to kiss me on the mouth, and I return the favor without, obviously, any carnal intent.

Feel free to share kissing thoughts.

Rejecting the narrative of male sexual indispensability

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One of my former youth group kids came to talk to me last week after reading last week’s post about sexual identity. Louisa, 19 years old, has been “out” as a lesbian since she was in ninth grade, and has been with her girlfriend for two years now.

Louisa is in love with her gal. But lately, she finds herself questioning her self-identification as a lesbian. Though she describes having always hated the label “bisexual” for what she saw as its “wishy-washiness”, she talked about her growing curiosity about what it would be like to be (sexually, if not romantically) with a man. Louisa has never done more than simple kissing with a guy, and she finds herself wondering whether she ought to “try something” with a man just to find out what it’s like. She admits she’s been driving her girlfriend crazy with this hemming and hawing about having an experience with a fellow. But her curiosity, more so than her libido (though she’s savvy enough to know that those two are often enmeshed) is causing her to be, in her words, “mildly obsessed” with knowing what it’s like to be sexual with a man.

Louisa has taken my gay and lesbian studies class. She has read her Adrienne Rich; she knows about the reality (not just the theory) of growing up in a culture of “compulsory heterosexuality.” And she knows very well that if she were with a man, she might feel far less psychological pressure to experiment with a woman. “We don’t make straight women prove their straightness by having sex with girls”, Louisa said, “so why do I feel so compelled to ‘prove’ I’m lesbian by trying something with a guy? It’s like I feel I have to earn my queer credentials.”

Louisa, who has known me since she was 13, wanted one thing from our conversation last week, and it’s something I don’t know if I was able to give to her. She wanted help discerning whether this fascination with trying “it” (specifically, losing her heterosexual virginity) was something rooted in her own psyche or whether it was a response to the dominant cultural narrative. I pointed out the obvious — that for most of those, those two things (“natural” or “inherent” longings on the one hand and the socially-conditioned ones on the other) are incredibly difficult to separate. A lot of us spend a great deal of time working through this process of discernment; it’s one of the toughest tasks of young adulthood, and not a task everyone succeeds in completing. But the fact that it’s difficult doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Clearly, most of us believe that our internal “bundle of desires” has innate and cultural-constructed elements. For example, we might say that for someone like Louisa, an attraction to women is largely innate while her attraction to partners who have dark eyes and like anime is largely conditioned. Continue reading →

After “in loco parentis”: some disjointed thoughts on student mentoring and sex education

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It’s always dangerous to write about books one hasn’t read. Still, I find that I learn a lot from book reviews. For as long as I can remember, my mother has subscribed to the New York Review of Books. Since I started graduate school nearly twenty years ago, she’s given me a gift subscription every year. I can’t say I finish every article, but I read it loyally. Like Ms. Magazine and the Economist, the New York Review is one of those staples of my youth upon which I rely still as an adult. And I learn a great deal from reading reviews about books I will never actually pick up.

I don’t read the very conservative Touchstone very often; run by what seem to be an ecumenical bunch of right-wing C.S. Lewis aficionados, most of what appears in its pages are less eloquent versions of the sort of screeds I prefer to read in First Things. (I mean, I’m not a reactionary, but if I’m going to spend time exposing my eyeballs to 14th century ideas, I might as well make sure those ideas are well-written). Still, I managed to come across this book review recently: Ploy Meets Girl, by Nathaniel Peters.

Reviewing three new jeremiads about the “hook-up culture” on American college campuses, Peters takes the predictable tactic of lamenting the ways in which feminist bogeywomen (the omnipresent forces of darkness in contemporary social conservative discourse) have misled young coeds about the proper understanding of sexuality. But to be fair, his review offers more than the usual wails about youthful promiscuity. Rather, Peters looks at the ways in which colleges do — and don’t — provide mentoring and sexual education to students.

Though even the average secular adult would argue that sex should be about more than just the physical experience, colleges and their students focus only on sexual performance. Universities with no creedal convictions feel ill-equipped to help students address metaphysical questions like the meaning of sex. They can answer only the physical questions, and those end up being the only ones discussed.

At my freshman orientation at Swarthmore College five years ago, we were told about the Sexual Health Counselors, peers who advertised the ability to help with sex toys, contraception, or intriguing permutations of positions and partners. But the college offered no help to those who might ask deeper questions, or even to those who wondered what to do the next morning with the person beside them.

That’s not entirely fair. I’m nearly two decades older than Mr. Peters; I came of age sexually in the Reagan years, when the media predicted a full-blown heterosexual AIDS epidemic. But in those conservative times known as the mid-1980s, I worked as a sexuality educator at Berkeley. Yes, we taught folks how to use condoms, and we even “demonstrated” the not-always ridiculous dental dam. We talked about masturbation and STDs and gave little primers on what was then known as HTLV-III (the forerunner, by name, to HIV). But we also talked about values, and about relationships, and about feelings. We faciltated discussions in dorms and sororities and co-ops about faith, ideals, and romantic longing.

I remember helping to lead a panel discussion (back in 1988 or so) on the question “Why Have Sex?” It was a strange title, and it drew a good-sized audience. The premise of the talk was that too many discussions about sex talked about why folks shouldn’t have it (at least until marriage), or about how to have it properly — but no one was talking about the perfectly reasonable question of why one ought to do it in the first place. The easy answer, of course, was “it feels good.” But that raises the question — what feels good? Is it arousal? Is it anticipation? Is it emotional closeness? Is it orgasmic release? What one person likes best about sex isn’t always what the person they’re being sexual with likes best. Continue reading →

The longing to “jump the life to come”: some thoughts on Shakespeare, pregnancy scares, contraception, and romantic myths

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There are a great many things I could blog about this morning, my own pre-election anxiety not least among them. I’m grateful that I’m leaving town (actually, the country) from tomorrow afternoon until late Sunday night — and that will give me a break from incessant poll-checking. Yesterday, I visited RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight and the DailyKos at least a dozen times each. I met with Stephanie, my Pilates trainer, this morning at 6:00. Though I normally do a private session with her three times a week, because of my travel schedule I won’t see her until next Wednesday morning — the day after the election. “We won’t see each other until after the election”, I blurted on my way out the door. “Oh God”, Stephanie replied, “I know. Let’s hope we’re both giddily happy at this time a week from now.” “Amen, sister”, I replied.

I will have more posts up about porn soon, but I am always reluctant to post too often about the same issue. I have a diverse group of readers, fortunately, and want to do my best to cover as many bases as possible. Two important voices for sex workers rights and for a “pro-porn” position, Amber Rhea and Renegade Evolution, have thoughtful responses to my recent posts. (Ren’s site may not be work-safe for all.) I’m glad respectful dialogue can happen.

I’m thinking about something else sex-related this morning. In the past month, three of the students I mentor (two women, one man) have come to me reporting pregnancy scares. They are all between 18-21, and each is in a committed relationship, though not with one another. In the case of the lad and one of the gals, the tests came back negative; in the case of the second young woman, she’s planning on taking a pregnancy test later today. (In case you’re wondering, yes, I do have a solid number of students of both sexes whom I mentor — and some of those students choose to seek me out for advice about their private as well as their intellectual lives. In cases where professional counseling is needed, my motto is “affirm and refer”, but in most instances, what these students need is a safe and reliable ear. Given that I teach so many courses on gender and sexuality, it makes sense that some students would seek me out for direction and counsel. I see it as part of my job, remembering that in my college days, I had a few professors from whom I sought personal as well as professional advice.)

I’m familiar with pregnancy scares. Heck, I’m familiar with unintended pregnancies, both in my own life as an adolescent and in my work as a teacher and youth leader. I have helped arrange (and in a couple of instances, helped pay for) abortions, and helped facilitate one adoption. I have been to two weddings of former students who got married as a result of a pregnancy. I’m honored to be trusted by as many young people as I am, and I hope to continue to be worthy of that trust.

But I’ve been thinking more about why so many young people I know choose not to use contraception. The gal who came to see me yesterday had been on the Nuvaring, but her insurance coverage lapsed, and she couldn’t get the scrip refilled. She and her beau had condoms available, but chose not to use them. “I don’t know why we’re so stupid”, she said to me yesterday. The young man I work with who came to me last week, worried his girlfriend might be pregnant, also reported that “condoms were available” at the key moment, but “we went ahead without them anyway.” I wasn’t shocked. When I got my high school girlfriend pregnant, we had condoms nearby as well. I didn’t like wearing them, and my girlfriend said she hated the way they felt. So we used them “some of the time”. And predictably, a pregnancy resulted.

The $64,000 question is: “Why?” Why do bright, educated young people who are very clear about how exactly babies are made choose to have unprotected heterosexual intercourse so very often? Why, on many occasions, do they find such flimsy excuses for not using contraception, even when contraceptive devices are easily available? In some cases, of course, lack of affordability is an issue — condoms aren’t as cheap as some folks think, and other forms of prescription contraception have grown much more expensive in recent years. In other cases, one partner (almost always the male) will nag the other about how “uncomfortable” condoms are. But in plenty of cases, these young people have access to reliable methods of birth control, and choose not to use them. Ignorance is not an all-encompassing explanation, and neither is expense. Something else is at play. Continue reading →

Shame, suicide, sex education and the unwitting incentivizing of abortion

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My old debating buddy and men’s right activist Glenn Sacks sent me a note about this post of his: Girl Commits Suicide After Being Expelled from School for Having an Abortion. Here’s an excerpt or two:

Last night my wife and I attended the 15-year-reunion for a Catholic School where I once taught. I taught most of the attendees World History as sophomores.

It was quite a way-back machine. I remembered some names and I recognized some faces, but didn’t do too well at connecting them. Still, many of the students remembered me (fondly, believe it or not), and I enjoyed seeing them again.

One student I wanted to see was Elena, who had been one of my favorites. She and her boyfriend Darian, who was also in my class, were expelled from the school in mid-year because Elena had gotten pregnant and had an abortion at Planned Parenthood.

The day they were expelled from school I had been out sick, and I was later told that they had come to my room after being expelled to see if I could defend them and get the expulsion reversed. I always felt a little guilty about having been out that day, though of course there was nothing I could’ve done about the expulsion anyway. It was quite a surprise–I had no idea she was even pregnant…

I was looking for her at the party last night and when I couldn’t find her I asked Cathy, who organized the event, if she knew whether Elena was coming. She got an odd look on her face, and told my wife and I:

Elena was very depressed after being expelled. She was cut off from her friends and the life she had. She got depressed and her life spiraled down.

A few years later she hanged herself. I was dating a guy whose brother was a friend of hers and he was the one who found her and cut her down.

My jaw dropped. It’s still on the floor. I guess we’ll never know to what degree her expulsion led to her suicide, but it certainly seems that it was a major factor. And however one feels about abortion, I’ve always opposed making pariahs out of scared girls who find themselves in a bad situation.

Glenn, more than most who beat the drum for the cottage industry known as the “men are victims too, and it’s mostly feminism’s fault” lobby, takes a liberal line on certain issues. He’s caught flak from some of his normal allies, who lean well to the political right, for standing up time and again for gays and lesbians. And I welcome the concern he expresses in this piece.

It’s a good time to talk again about teens and abortion. The initiative that won’t die is back on the California ballot this fall: Proposition 4, which requires parental notification for minors seeking an abortion. We beat two earlier incarnations of this proposition (73 and 85) in 2005 and 2006, but its wealthy conservative backers are nothing if not relentless. Given the stakes that they perceive to be at play, I admire their tenacity even as I reject their basic premise. (For more on parental notification, read this old post of mine opposing the identical proposition 85 a few years ago. And check out Mermade’s piece from just this past weekend.)

The story of what happened to Glenn’s old student is desperately sad. My initial inclination is to hold the school which expelled her accountable — at least in significant part — for her suicide. My more right-wing friends would reject that notion, and might even argue that guilt over the abortion was a prime instigator for Elena to take her life. But if guilt was a motivating factor in the suicide, that guilt was something externally imposed on to Elena rather than her own organic response to terminating a pregnancy. Of course, in the absence of a very detailed suicide note, folks on both sides of the abortion divide could argue about this until the proverbial cows wander back into the barn. It’s axiomatic that we come to these painful anecdotes, all of us, with our own prejudices. We interpret a tragedy in a way that fits not only our worldview but our deepest instincts about sexuality and ethics. Continue reading →