DC and Sex Ed

Hello, friendly feministas!

I've been meaning to weigh in for awhile but haven't yet found an article or advertisement that has brought up enough to peg a post to. Instead, I'll share some of my experience over the last five months doing HIV/AIDS prevention in two DC public high schools. Anecdotal I know--sorry--but I just want to be part of the blogging family :)

Three times a week, I teach a CDC-approved curriculum in two public high schools off of Minnesota Ave in NE DC. Both of these schools previously employed curricula focused (unfairly) at women, and encouraged them to "guard [their] diamonds." I don't think I need to elucidate in any ways why this is messed up. Now, we take a comprehensive approach, promoting safe sex, pregnancy prevention and providing options for negotiating condom use talking to your partner about STDs, etc.

There's a lot of things I could write about here, but one of the most relevant is the manipulation of teenage pregnancy as a power struggle between young men and women. During the fourth session, we do a step-by-step condom demonstration. Step number two: check the condom for an air bubble. I explained this as something you had to check to make sure there hadn't been an error in manufacturing/storing. During the first class, one of my students corrected me: "Miss, you don't gotta worry about the person who made it--you gotta worry about the person who gave it to you." At first, I thought this was just a smart-ass thing for a kid to say. Then, the same reaction happened in each and every one of my nine classes. Apparently, it's common place (or, at least common enough for all of my students to worry about it) for young women to poke pin-sized holes in condoms and then use them--hoping to "trap" young men through pregnancy--or for young men to do the same in order to "stick it to" young women. While I've always known that teen pregnancy is a reality, it's incredible to what extent it plays into the assumption and assertion of power between genders.

What's equally troubling is the data our pre- and post-surveys reveal: most of the students come into our classes with a basic (read: VERY basic) understanding of what will put them at risk for HIV and other STDs, but have NO idea how to talk to their partners about this. So many of the teenagers I come in contact with lead these hyper-sexualized lives (see also: Superman) but have never had a legitimate discussion of sex before this tenth grade health class. When discussing STDs, I generally spend equal--if not more--time explaining what the cervix is, why Pelvic Inflammatory Disease is bad news, and how people become pregnant. At least one student per class has to ask the "real" word for "coochie" or "cock."

I basically borrow gym teacher's classrooms and it's an interesting struggle unto itself to correct the stigmas some teachers promote in their "health" classes-- one teacher poses this to young women if they come in late: "Who were you sleeping with last night that got you walking so slow?" He encourages young men to stop "acting like a f*****" when they ask questions about the risks involved with anal sex or imply even slightly that they might want to delay sex with their partners. He once asked a student to buy him a vibrating condom. While I'd love to say that these are just my experiences, the Americorps team I'm working with is placed in 100% of DC tenth-grade health classes, and just about all of my teammates have reported similiar experiences. It's scary who we can mistake for a certified and trained health-information provider.

Hmm, this post has gotten long and hasn't been particularly productive... just wanted to add my two cents. Seems like we're arming our young men and women with ways to promote and further abusive behavior (both physically and verbally) based on gender instead of ways to protect themselves and the people around them...

Hopefully a more productive post soon.