I will be joining a good friend and colleague, Andre Blackman of Pulse + Signal, as a presenter on social media and sexual health at Sex::Tech in San Francisco February 26th and 27th.

For those of you who know me (well), you know that I am passionate about sexual health and education, equality and expression (yes, I just linked a picture of… well… just click on the link).  At any rate, I have drafted my initial (brief) abstract and thought I’d share it below (confined to <150 words was like big kid Twitter… but still challenging for a verbose gal like me).  I am also passionate about social technologies.  So when you combine the two — sex and technology — in a single conference… <<<mind blown>>>

DRAFT - ABSTRACT:

Working Title: How and Why Social Media Will Impact the Sex Education Policy Debate

Social media has shown that it is effective at helping cover and break news (cf. downed plane in the Hudson River), raise awareness and funds for charitable causes (cf. Twestival) and unite passionate voices, no matter their origins (cf. Iran Election).  In short: social media is helping people connect in seconds, not hours or days and build movements in hours, not weeks or months.  Transaction costs are lower.  Barriers to entry, nearly eliminated.  Social media, while still requiring expertise and investment, is an imperative tool that every advocate, activist and educator needs in their tool belt as they look to recruit supporters, engage the media and influence policy in 2010 and beyond.  In her presentation, Leslie will review award-winning “DIY recipes for success” and share her own case study from 2009, where she challenged The Heritage Foundation’s stance on sex education through a variety of social media tactics.

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I have plenty of caveats and nuances that I hope to shed light on in the deck I am building… so stay tuned! And, if you are in San Francisco the weekend of 2/26 - 2/27, consider checking it out.

This LTE was submitted in response to Rebecca Hagelin’s Op-Ed entitled “Assaulted by sex ed” (Washington Times, 8/10/09).  It originally ran in the Washington Times: “LETTER TO EDITOR: Let’s talk about sex ed,” and was dated 8/24/09.

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LETTER TO EDITOR: Let’s talk about sex ed

By | Monday, August 24, 2009

Rebecca Hagelin’s recent column “Assaulted by sex-ed” (Culture, Aug. 10) uses overcharged rhetoric to further its position rather than engaging with the actual content of the issue of sex education. Ms. Hagelin holds that “perverted and immoral sex propagandists” shouldn’t be teaching children about sex. By describing respectable organizations such as the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) in such extreme language, Ms. Hagelin conflates the concept of discussing sex with the views of people with whom she disagrees.

If it is our goal to raise children to become happy, healthy and productive members of society, we need to ensure that when we talk about sex — at home or at school — it is done in a way that gets us to a productive end, not a pathological one. Unfortunately, Ms. Hagelin’s choice of words has the opposite effect.

Moreover, Ms. Hagelin’s argument contradicts key conservative principles about personal responsibility, evaluating economic impacts and driving our society forward in innovative ways. If we expect our children to be able to think for themselves, they need to have access to complete and reliable information. Strong moral teachings should help children process and deal with “sordid” information rather than avoid it entirely. And parents can always opt out — personal choice is key.

So, yes, Ms. Hagelin sounds like an alarmist. But let’s get real: Minimizing the overheated rhetoric on this issue would make the debate more accessible to the average parent. It also would make it easier for Ms. Hagelin’s goals to be realized. Let’s have a meaningful conversation that gets to the root of the issue and to the solutions.

LESLIE BRADSHAW

Washington

Originally posted on the Women’s Rights Blog on Change.org

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It was 1 a.m. this morning and I was going about my sometimes benign, sometimes epic scan of Twitter before bed. As I often remark in trainings and with interested audiences, Twitter has created a pretty damn efficient marketplace for ideas, and this evening was no exception.  ”Epic” might be an understatement. On offer this night, courtesy a delayed RSS feed of The Heritage Foundation’s five most recent op-eds, was an opinion piece by Rebecca Hagelin: “Assaulted by sex-ed,” which ran Monday in the Washington Times, with 3 comments as of this writing.

Not only does title the title appear to play on words - sex education implying sexual assault - but the actual content unfortunately reinforces a style of rhetoric about sex that is unproductive and makes a mistake common to traditionalist conservatives: The argument contradicts key conservative principles about personal responsibility, evaluating economic impact and driving our society forward in innovative, world- and industry-leading ways.

Let me be clear: on many market issues and some general policy issues, I see eye-to-eye with Heritage.  I have even met in person and worked with Rebecca Hagelin (via JESS3) on a project that included redesigning their e-mail newsletters and web design for Heritage’s blog, The Foundry.  She is sharp, pleasant and a working mom.  Respect, respect.  I also count key Heritage folks like Rob Bluey, Tim McGovern and Todd Thurman friends.  This is in no way a personal attack on Rebecca or any of her colleagues.  And I hope anyone who chooses to engage in the comments, over Twitter and on their own blogs also maintains a high level of respect and professionalism.

As many friends and readers of my blog know, I have an interest in this subject beyond the pedestrian.  I bring to the table over 15 years of activism in the sexuality and education space, starting as early as 7^th grade and marked by academic work at the University of Chicago (especially my senior thesis, “Rethinking, Reframing and Revolutionizing the Sex Education Debate“).

As they say in academia, let’s unpack this.  And to do so, I have two points and one caveat:

FIRST - THINK RETHINKING (this is where it gets interesting and productive). In 1984, Gayle Rubin put forth an important, well-considered challenge to rethink the way we think about sex.  I want to challenge: the reader here, Rebecca Hagelin, The Heritage Foundation, young, old, conservative, progressive, straight, gay, heterosexual, queer and everything in between to rethink about what is really being taught, what is missing, what can in fact be presented in a better way.  To quote Rubin from 25 years ago: to truly have a meaningful and more realistic understanding of sex, we must shift our thinking from the traditional framings of sex in terms of “sin, disease, neurosis, pathology, decadence, pollution, or the declines and fall of empires” to instead understand sex in terms of “social analysis and historical understanding.”

SECOND - DON’T REGRESS (in 2009, we cannot afford not to take into account scientific, sociological and psychological learnings when it comes to human sexuality). While the Heritage Foundation espouses the concepts of free enterprise and individual freedom, they still have an arguably non sequitur belief in fear-based (not health- / science-based) treatment of sex education.  Sorry, but this is where the conservative movement and adherent Republican politicians lose me and, I would imagine, many others.  Until we can have a reasoned and measured discussion about sex, without framing it in terms of pathology and propaganda, we will not be able to truly address key issues such as sexual health (think both STDs, AIDS, abuse, as well as personal sexual agency and pleasure) and planned pregnancy (think not only reduced levels of rape, abortions and unprotected sex, but also joyful families welcoming little blessings into this world).

See what I did there? By using the neutral word “health” we can talk about the range from disease to expression.  By using a word like “planned”, we can talk about what happens when things do and do not go as planned.  The language we use and the way we frame our thoughts all have an impact on the politics, policies outcomes and potential solutions.  Not only do I see this enabling a happier, healthier and more self-aware culture, but I truly believe that this reframing has real impacts and benefits to our economy - just ask any economist from my alma mater (see especially: Becker and Levitt).  Further, thanks to well-reasoned thinking from greats like George Orwell, we know that language is inherently political.  But that doesn’t mean we should charge it up with negativity just because we can.  I would sure hope an institution that considers itself a “think tank” would think through its argument and frame it in a more productive way.

THIRD - MY CAVEAT: I am also not ready to completely disregard concerns about age-appropriate content in classrooms funded by the state.  On this point, I am not ready to dismiss Dr. Miriam Grossman, the expert quoted by Hagelin in her piece, who has written You’re Teaching My Child What? A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Education, because I would like to first read her book and second, continue my own research in this area before I make any final judgments.  In fact, my suspicion here is that both Hagelin and Grossman may describe extreme, but rare, instances that are true in some cases.  I also recognize that Hagelin is deliberate and strategic about her polarizing approach.  She has a world view that in her experience has not been honored by the public school system and it’s OK if she wants to opt out of the system.  She also has a book to sell; hats off to the hustle.

That said, this remains a conviction and the note on which I want to end: Using extremist language such as “perverted and immoral sex propagandists” to describe respectable organizations like SEICUS gets us nowhere fast.  This is exactly the kind of language I saw advanced in the 90s in Oregon by the far-right group Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA), where they conflated a way of life (homosexuality), with a set of practices (S&M) and a completely illegal act (pedophilia).  Polarizing tactics aside, the end goal here should be happy, healthy children who grow into happy, healthy and productive members of society.  As many of us know, relationships, sex, having children and sexuality all play into our ultimate and collective happiness and healthiness.  And so does meaningful, well-framed and productive dialogue, as I believe I have begun to lay out here.

What are your concerns?  Where do you think the limits reside?  Please share your thoughts here, over Twitter and via our Act.ly petition:

Petition @Heritage to Help facilitate a meaningful dialogue about Sex Ed. #sexed http://act.ly/e6 RT to sign #actly

Even more fired up?  Blog about it, tell a friend.

Photo credit: Lew57

** update included at the end of this post **

Having just reviewed and written about Birth Control Watch, I wanted to add another layer of context to the site… it has rightly placed these organizations on “watch” for the following reasons (listed below the list). These organizations are using flawed logic at best and, at worse, no scientific facts. As a woman of strong faith and strong mind, I urge these groups to realize how truly damaging their lobbying efforts are when it comes to the health, well being and future of women and their families world wide.

1. Family Research Council
2. Concerned Women For America
3. Pro-Life Action League
4. Christian Coalition
5. Focus On The Family
6. Medical Institute For Sexual Health
7. Population Research Institute
8. Pro-Life America
9. Physicians For Life
10. Operation Rescue
11. Quiverfull
12. Human Life International
13. Army Of God
14. Stop Planned Parenthood (American Life League)
15. C-Fam
16. National Abstinence Clearinghouse
17. American Life League
18. Birth Control.Org
19. Americans United For Life
20. Catholic Medical Association
21. No Room For Contraception
22. Christian Medical Association
23. Couple To Couple League
24. Generations For Life
25. Rock For Life (American Life League)

Note’s Birth Control Watch (and I completely concur):

“This debate is supposed to be over; our most important life decisions are meant to be our own personal responsibility (as 93% of voters believe they should be), protected by the government, (over 75% of voters believe they should be.) Yet right now the 9% of Americans who want to deny us the ability to decide when we become parents and limit our opportunities to make the best decisions for ourselves and our families are aggressively working to control our individual decision-making.”

How is the opposition doing this? Five insidious and unproductive initiatives that you should be on the watch for, that’s how:

1 - Proposed New HHS Federal Regulations on Contraception

These new regulations would seriously limit access to birth control options

2 - Colorado Voter Referendum: A Fertilized Egg is a Person

This ballot proposal would limit access to the prevention of unintended pregnancies that 75% of voters believe we should have. It asks Colorado voters to give full human rights to every fertilized egg.

3 - The “Pill Kills” Campaigns (American Life League)
This campaign shows so little respect for Americans – it makes false claims against birth control pills in an effort to influence the 91% of voters who believe that Americans should make these important life decisions themselves.

4 - Abstinence-Only Funding
76% of voters believe that for teenagers, prevention starts with comprehensive sex education, but over the past two decades the U.S. government has invested over $1.5 billion in abstinence-until-marriage programs that promote inaccurate information and have proven to fail.

5 - Pharmacist Refusals
Refusals to fill prescriptions for contraception are growing across the country. Pharmacists unwilling to provide women their prescription contraception act on personal beliefs, not on medical or professional concerns.

***UPDATE 10/13/08: I was contacted by American Life League’s Director of Communications, Kathleen Walker. Not only was it a respectful email, but we will be following up further for an interview/dialog of some sort that I will share here on my blog. Kathleen also wanted to note a correction: “STOPP Planned Parenthood and Rock for Life are both actually a part of/projects of American Life League - as is the Pill Kills campaign. So you can shorten your list by two to only 23 organizations to watch.” (Thanks Kathleen, I have updated my headline to reflect that there are sub-groups within the 25 that are related to one another. As someone who has been an online brand and community manager for a number top brands in the last 4 years, I want to commend you for being such a great example of an online steward for your organization.)

Just shortly after writing a post about one of the most essential things we all need — clean, safe drinking water — another SOS has come across my inbox tonight. Sex. And, like water, sex is better when it is safe.

Challenges made to sound sex ed practices is nothing new to me; if you are a regular reader here at lb.com, you will know I studied gender and sexuality at the University of Chicago and wrote my BA Thesis on the topic of sex ed (“Rethinking, Reframing and Revolutionizing the Sex Education Debate“).

Challenges made to sex ed and contraceptive funding has been a topic I think we have all encountered throughout our lives; for me, it when I was going to middle school and the Oregon Citizen’s Alliance tried masking sex ed policy in “pedophile” rhetoric; and high school, the Planned Parenthood in Eugene, Oregon was a medical out-post that provided contraceptives to sexually active teens for FREE under state funding; this provided a safe option for teens who were already having sex.

While my previous posts have focused more broadly on tolerance, rights and respect for non-heterosexual couples and non-heteronormative sex practices, I want this one to be about the need for affordable, accessible, safe birth control. For some, this is a non-issue at this point: of course people should have the choice and the access to these things. For others, they still think that making a “promise” and “abstaining” from one of life’s most natural and wonderful experiences is practical.

Tonight, a good friend of mine passed on a great resource: Birth Control Watch. It is a website who serves to (1) keep people apprised of legislation and groups for and against birth control and (2) highlight/monitor the activities of those trying to chip away at the rights of Americans to have access to safe, affordable birth control methods.

I applaud the effort of the site’s founders, Women Donors Network (WDN) and the Communications Consortium Media Center (CCMC).

PS: The description of WDN gives me goosebumps (and makes me want to say: HELL YEA!):

“WDN, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is a philanthropic community for those who refuse to accept the status quo. From supporting voter registration efforts, to funding international programs assisting women’s quests for economic independence, WDN unites powerful, visionary women who are committed to effecting lasting fundamental change. “

When it comes to resources, this site is already showing that it is a go-to spot. They have a few dozen YouTube videos from both sides, which I would embed here if the numbers weren’t so voluminous (and, while I am all for equal air-time and respecting their right to voice their opinions under the First Amendment, I don’t want to give the opponents any support by embedding their videos, sorry).

I also enjoyed reading Birth Control Watch’s blog, which has a few posts up so far. One that caught my eye in particular was from Friday, October 10th, entitled: “Frothing and Crazy Americans Leading Bush’s Foreign Policy.”

Leaning on a column by Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times (“Can This Be Pro-Life?”), BCW points out notes:

“[The article] focused on USAID’s defunding of the reproductive health NGO Maria Stopes International. Under the banner of ‘pro-life’, Kristoff explains, this action will lead to the deaths of countless mothers and children in Africa, where pregnancy is already the leading killer of women between fifteen and forty-five years old. “

To which BCW adds their own analysis:

“Birth control is the only proven factor in reducing abortion. Yet somehow, not a single anti-abortion group in the U.S. supports contraception. The shockingly high rates of teen pregnancy in America—on par with Third World countries and four times as high as the European Union—are direct consequences of the pro-life movement’s strength in our country, as are disproportionately high rates of AIDS contraction in regions where contraception is not taught in schools.”

Perhaps the most compelling part of all of this comes at the end of the post, in which BCW writes:

“Now our domestic anti-choice groups are exporting their dangerous efforts beyond our borders, which, coupled with lack of healthcare and extreme poverty, will result in even more dire consequences. One such group, Human Life International, boasts on their website about bringing about the destruction of 10 million condoms in Tanzania, where almost 9 percent of the population, roughly 1,600,000 people, have AIDS.”

Final thought from me and from BCW:

“These extremists ignore all scientific and statistical data in order to pursue an agenda that is anti-health, anti-women, and anti-life.”

Check out Birth Control Watch, spread the word… and even more importantly, don’t let these organizations get away with (1) denying access to birth control and (2) creating situations that in fact inhibit health and wellness domestically and abroad. I will follow this post with one specifically outlining the organizations and initiatives that are threatening safe, equal access.

(UPDATING MY HEADLINE — I will likely tweak it a few more times)

I normally watch each debate (as I did with each convention speech, for that matter) about 3 - 4 times before the night is over when I am working the late shift for C-SPAN.

But, while watching/working the Vice Presidential Debates on Thursday night, something that both candidates — and even the moderator — said caused me to really take pause.

I spun around in my chair.

I dropped what I was doing.

And I sat and listened to this (this whole segment is upsetting on many levels, but it is especially the last line that is most disappointing and I will tell you why):

Catalyzed by the question posed by the moderator (PBS’ Gwen Ifill): “Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?” Sen. Joe Biden answers: “Absolutely….”

Ms. Ifill then tweaks the question for Gov Sarah Palin: “Governor, would you support expanding that beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation?” To which Gov. Palin answers: “Well, not if it gets closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition between one man and one woman; and unfortunately, that’s sometimes where those steps lead.”

PAUSE.

I want to establish these five points before moving on:

• Ifill takes the cautious and yet bold steps to get at the heart of the matter: should gay marriage be allowed.
• Biden avoids the issue by focusing on the Obama/Biden support of benefits.
• Palin knows where Ifill is going with the question and takes it head on (got to give her credit). I couldn’t disagree with her answer more, but credit for taking on the real issue.
• Benefits = not the issue.
• Equality, i.e., being seen as equal in the eyes of the law and our entire society = the issue.

UNPAUSE.

So, we have Biden ‘getting out of’ taking on the issue in the first round and Palin using moral language to equate the expansion of same-sex benefits to a “slippery slope” of “vice” (her tone and use of the word “unfortunately” are at once patronizing and revealing). Listen closely to what Palin says. She, in just a few lines, makes it clear that (1) she is “you know, tolerant” and that it is ‘ok’ for gay people to “chose relationships” — not going to problematize the choice/nature argument here, but note that I do take issue with her trivialization here AND (2) is ‘not ok’ to define marriage as anything but that which is “between one man and one woman.”

I ask you Gov. Palin: How is this tolerant? How do your words teach the next generation acceptance when you stop so obviously short of full personhood? It is unacceptable. (FWIW: I have written at length what is at stake in previous posts and unpublished writings.)

And don’t think I am letting you, Sen. Biden, get away so fast. In another previous post, I related that I had not done my homework yet on your stance here. Well, tonight, you sort of made my job easy. You said it all. In fact, you, Sen. Biden, and your running mate, Sen. Barak Obama, are shying away from the opportunity to give real Hope and enact real Change. Those are your monikers and mantras, are they not?

You avoid the real issue of equality in exchange for more moderate political stripes and, ergo, more votes. I get the sense that you might actually support gay marriage on the federal level if you were not under such political pressures (or at least, it is my hope that the supposedly liberal, tolerant and progressive party that is the Democratic Party stands for such equality). Then again, maybe not.

And while Gov. Palin’s morally-charged sentiments that hearken back to the vice-police days bounce around the emptiness that is Sen. Biden’s half-stance, stance I learned all I needed to know about both in these final sentences from all three folks on the stage and many in the audience:

Ms. Ifill: “Do you support gay marriage?”

Sen. Biden: “No, Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. […]”

• What about what the “civil side of things” said about the rights of African Americans prior to Brown v. Board of Education?
• What about what the “civil side of things” said about a woman’s right to vote before the 19th Amendment?
• What about what the “civil side of things” said about a woman’s right to chose before Roe v. Wade?

To Sen. Biden, I say this: The “civil side of things” has been wrong in our legal system and in our cultural landscape before and it is wrong here again. That you do not (1) see that, (2) agree with that and (3) do anything to see that this is righted has me question your intentions, principles and definition of equality.

Ms. Ifill then turns to Gov. Palin: “Is that what you said?”

Gov. Palin: “Your question to him was whether he supported gay marriage and my answer is the same as his and it is that I do not.”

Ms. Ifill: “Wonderful, you agree. On that note, let’s move on to foreign policy.” (Laughter.)

To the candidates: You already know what I think of how you both approach this issue, but to review…

• Palin: You are thinking in a single-minded view of marriage and dangerously evoke a very morally righteous “vice” tone when you allude to what [sounds to me like you are saying] ‘evils’ may ‘lurk’ around the bend of equality.
• Biden: You fall short of a true progressive. You pander to the middle.

To Ms. Ifill I say this: There is nothing “wonderful” about their agreement. That they both agree about something that keeps a population of people in a second-class rank-and-file in this country is so far from wonderful, I would venture to pull out words like ‘despicable.’

To the audience I say this: You laugh uncomfortably. You laugh like you did in middle school. You laugh becuase you want to get on to the more ‘important’ issues like foreign policy and the economy. And while I do not for a second think these are unimportant, I do want to make a distinction of my use important here: the economy and foreign policy are not important in the way that impacts the very being, the mental/emotional health of an entire population of people.

While it can be argued that financial crises and violence abroad rock the very core/health of millions, it is an external set of issues that come to bear on these individuals.

Who you are, who you love, how you live… those are fundamental, internal and psychological issues. To not address the systemic, systematic, perpetuated and pervasive discrimination in this country on these internal levels as we do in the cases where there are external issues, while instead uncomfortably laugh it off because, as Ms. Ifill noted, it was a “wonderful” thing that both candidates “agree” — well thank God, we can [superficially] move on — is truly sad.

But we can’t move on.

And we shouldn’t.

Separate has not and will never be equal when it comes to legal, civil, moral and cultural laws and/or norms.

I have more thinking to do on this, but had to make sure to post about this before I went to bed. Thank you. -L.

If you thought my last post was personal and well-thought-out (or not), just wait until you read what I have in store below.

It is with great excitement and nervous energy (the good kind, I hope), that I share the following announcement:

I have made the decision to begin to post sections of my BA Thesis, written at the University of Chicago in the Department of Gender Studies and researched in 2003 and 2004. Advised by Dr. Stuart Michaels, I applied a cross section of methodologies, theories and disciplines to research and complete this project. I drew from sociology, women’s studies, gender studies, queer studies, anthropology, political science, history, psychology and even economics.

For as much as I love the thing, I am also proud that the Internet was not consulted on this project; rather, it was 100% field work, course work and source work.

It hits close to home, because my ethnographic work was conducted in a town I called home from 1993 - 2000. I have altered only slightly the names and personal details when my research and personal stories are discussed so as to respect the privacy of those involved.

What I post tonight and ongoing will remain unaltered from its final state; the state it has been in since I officially turned it in, received departmental and University confirmation and awarded honors during the Spring of 2004.

So I begin with the Title and the Preface tonight.

A final note before I hit publish: Here is looking at more — more from my Thesis; more personal and collaborative efforts to investigate and examine the presidential and vice presidential candidates on these and other related topics; and more from me in terms of critical examinations of my project’s relevance, application and viability in the 2008 Elections. It is getting late and I need some sleep, as I have an important morning ahead of me… one that I hope will only further inspire writing in this and other productive veins.

You can feel the urgency in my voice four years ago; it has been far too quiet in more recent years and I hope that this can help catalyze further dialog and action from myself and others in the coming days, weeks and months as we look to elect the 44th president, decide on ballot measures and evaluate a host of representatives at the local and state level across the country.

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That We Should All Turn [Out] Healthy?
A critical inquiry into the project of preparing Junction City High School Students for ‘healthy’ lives in the ‘real’ world

Over three decades ago, Gayle Rubin opened her essay “Thinking Sex�—now the sine qua non of sexuality, queer, gender, and women’s studies— by exhorting her reader: The time has come to think about sex.(1) Disengaging herself from the other approaches to the topic of sex, Rubin puts forth the bold and original project of reexamining and questioning the ways that sex, sexuality, and all of their expressions and variations have been understood, interpreted, framed and even regulated over time. She implores that we shift our thinking from the traditional framings of sex in terms of “sin, disease, neurosis, pathology, decadence, pollution, or the declines and fall of empires� to instead understand sex in terms of “social analysis and historical understanding.� The more fruitful categories that she suggests include such phenomena as “populations, neighborhoods, settlement patterns, migration, urban conflict, epidemiology, and police technology.� Finally, Rubin claims that by approaching sex in these novel ways, “a more realistic politics of sex becomes possible.�(2)

Building on Rubin’s pioneering work, this project is based on the belief that the time has come to think about sex education. At this moment in history, the issues of gay marriage, LGBTQ rights in the workplace, and sex education policy and funding are ever-present. Though, at first glance, the first two issues may seem somewhat unrelated to the latter issue of sex education, my project will show that they are in fact complicatedly related to one another. The ways that each of these issues get framed, understood, experienced, and decided all have the same undercurrent running beneath their seemingly placid and partisan surfaces. And just as Rubin had to disengage from the former framings of sex, in order for this project’s importance to be realized, I must also disengage from the terms of sex education as they have come to be used and delve beneath these superficies. In fact, the mere focus on sex education is what is truly keeping at bay the more subtle and perilous project that is going on in classrooms across the country. Although I have confined my investigation to a single high school in a semi-rural town, I am willing to wager that the kind of health education that is present at Junction City High School is in fact the same kind of general education that students countrywide are receiving, which includes, but is not centered on, education about sex.

Also at this moment, the winds of change seem to be suggesting a reality that previous generations could not even conceive of: a gay/queer lifespan. That is, no longer is just the act of gay sex or a queer experience—from cross-dressing to sex reassignment surgery to polyamory or fantasizing about someone of the same sex— the defining or limiting understanding of what it means to exist outside the boundaries of normative heterosexuality. In short, it is more than a single act and it goes beyond a mere experience. This historical moment allows for a most exciting project: cracking open the narrative of healthiness and normalcy as it is presented in sex and health education curricula nationwide. But my project does not bite off this entire potentiality. Rather, it starts small and in the local site of the town in which I went to high school. This microlevel framing and approach adds even further timeliness and urgency to my investigation. One year ago this May (2004), a close high school friend committed suicide. He had graduated early from Junction City High School and spent time at the University of Tennessee and then at the University of Arizona, where he ended his life after 3 semesters. His educational migrations serve to just scratch the surface of what most would say, in retrospect, was a reality of general instability plagued with unhappiness, cynicism and an overall detachment from life that he lived.

But what came to light after his death would both shock and silence a community, and eventually disappear altogether. A few weeks before taking his own life, he disclosed to a few close friends that he was attracted to another male student. He wanted to make it clear, however, that he was still attracted to women and, moreover, did not consider himself gay or living a gay lifestyle. He went so far as to say that he did not want to be thought of as a flaming fag or a fashion designer the way that other gay men were seen by society.

I do not for a minute want to boil his unhappiness or suicide down to some generic and textbook psychological case of “internalized self hate� because of a homosexual desire. What I do want to question is how someone can go through life with only a single view, a single apprehension, and a limited language to understand what it means to have intense feelings for someone of the same sex. Where is this picked up? Taught? Learned?

As Rubin so poignantly notes in her aforementioned essay, in this day and age (hers and ours alike) we would not think of teaching a racial hierarchy or promote a single religion, or endorse only one kind of cuisine. And yet, when it comes to viewing sexuality and gender we have the most monolithic and singular ideas. Thus, when it comes to presenting and teaching about sex, sexuality, gender, and all their related sub-experiences (e.g., coupledom, marriage, child bearing and raising, etc.) the health education program at Junction City high school does just that. They rank. They singly promote. They unilaterally endorse.

There just are no viable presentations of non-heterosexual experiences, identities, life courses, and even a language with which to understand such things anywhere in society, and especially not in the very classes that purport to deal with the issue of sex and sexuality in order to produce a healthy individual. It is no wonder that there is so much tension around the gay marriage debate—our country already has chosen its single expression of life and has since been codifying and propagating it through every avenue possible. Further, it is no wonder that my friend chose to end his life. He truly saw no other options for living.

The time has come to think about the implicit messages being codified, reified, amplified, reinforced, and propagated via the model of heteronormativity promoted in schools. The coupling of our country’s current zeitgeist surrounding LGBTQ issues and my friend’s suicide makes this project real, its implications tangible, and the effects of what is taught and learned realizable. How might our country be addressing the issue of gay marriage differently if there were other viable and respectable models of non-heterosexual personhood available? What would my friend’s life have been like had he experienced a wellness model that included non-heterosexual life narratives? I encourage you, the reader, to keep these questions in the back of your mind as you read through the data, analysis, and conclusion of my project. The time has come. The time is now.

(1) Rubin, Gayle, “Thinking Sex,� in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, Carole S. Vance, ed. (Routeledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 267.

(2) Ibid., p. 277.