The Role of Fiction in Sexuality Education

By Melissa A. Fabello

Our Bodies, Ourselves.   It’s Perfectly Normal. What’s Happening to My Body?   These are all books that we, as sex educators or future sex educators, know and love.  We have them in our personal libraries; we recommend them to our friends; we buy them for people as birthday gifts.  We understand that they are pivotal, major works in regards to teenagers and sexuality, and beyond those basics, we know other works of non-fiction, too, that we can recommend to more advanced readers, to parents, to colleagues.  We have entire reference lists typed up in our minds (perhaps branded there from how often we have to cite them – APA-style, of course).  But there’s something missing here, something that could be, perhaps not more important, but at least complementary.  Fiction.

Books that have been written on the diverse topics of Human Sexuality are fantastic.  Some of them – like the ones above – are well-written as well as being informative, which is why they’ve earned a spot in our “literary cannon,” so to speak.  But the problem with non-fiction is that you can’t feel it.  You can understand it and identify with it.  You can use it as a basis of knowledge or to explain the world around you, but you can’t connect with it.  You can’t empathize or sympathize.  You can’t become best friends with it.  You can’t cry when something horrible happens or rejoice when the situation has finally been resolved.  You can’t have a relationship with it.  But with fiction, you can.

I read a lot of young adult novels.  I’m not sure if it’s because I work with adolescents or because I long for the forever-gone days of my youth, but I devour those books the same way that I do French fries.  I can’t stop.  And ever since I was in puberty and discovered Judy Blume – Are You There, God?  It’s Me, Melissa, And I Am So Glad That I Found This Fxxxing Book Because It’s Saving My Life – I have understood the innate power that literature has to help you understand yourself by understanding other people, even if they’re just characters in a novel.  And when I was in high school, I related so much to the characters in the books that I read, not just on a superficial level, but on a level that I thought was deep and enriching.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Chbosky, 1999) taught me that it was okay to be an outsider.  Annie On My Mind (Garden, 1982) helped me realize that my lesbian relationship was legitimate and beautiful and true.  I lost myself in books not because I wanted to escape, but because I wanted to understand.  And that relationship has yet to dissipate.  Because the special thing that fiction does is that it doesn’t just give a name to what you’re going through.  It connects you to it.  After reading Speak (Anderson, 1999), didn’t you, yourself, feel like a secondary survivor of sexual assault after watching what Melinda goes through?  Didn’t you feel like it happened to your friend?  And all of a sudden you can recognize the warning signs, and you’re suddenly better equipped to deal with it on an emotional level?  That’s what fiction does.

I could go down an entire list of books to recommend to people to read when it comes to issues in sexuality.  Teen dating violence?  Try Rage: A Love Story (Peters, 2009) or Dreamland (Dessen, 2000).  Eating disorder?  Wintergirls (Anderson, 2009) or Just Listen (Dessen, 2006) or Brave Girl Eating (Brown, 2010).  Sexual assault?  Twisted (Anderson, 2007).  Transgender? Luna (Peters, 2004).  Lesbian or questioning?  The Bermudez Triangle (Johnson, 2005) or Empress of the World (Ryan, 2003) or Love and Lies (Wittlinger, 2009) or Hello, Groin (Goobie, 2006) or Keeping You a Secret (Peters, 2005).  And on and on and on.  Because these books do more than entertain.  They normalize.  They validate.  They educate.

Fiction is powerful.  And I believe that that power can be extremely useful to us as educators, if only we learn to harness and wield it.  I think that it’s time for us to create another reference list in our heads, another shelf in our personal library.  One dedicated to fiction.  And I think that we can use these books, either in conjunction with non-fiction or on their own, to touch the hearts of our students and get them thinking about issues in sexuality in a more personal way.  I think that we can use that connection to our benefit.  In short, I think that fiction could change the world.

So what are some works of fiction that you’ve read that address issues in sexuality?  Which are ones that you would recommend?  How do you go about finding them?  And what are some ways that you think that you could incorporate fiction into the work that you do as educators?

Providing Successful Sex Education Online...

As a full time graduate student, I provide sex ed mainly through my online sex educator persona happEsextalk, so I wanted to describe some issues I'm experiencing going into 2013, and ask for some guidance and/or advice on how to be more effective in online sex education!

The Widener Sexuality Careers Conference from last year caused a surge of energy and focus on sex education online since so many people are utilizing the internet for sources of information regarding sexuality related issues - especially since there are great websites for teens such as Answer, Scarleteen, Sex, Etc., and of course, Planned Parenthood.

While I understand that a big part of being a successful educator online is by looking at what already exists, and trying to offer different/missing information or approach the topic you're educating differently than others already doing it, within our field there's room for many to educate about sexuality in both similar and different ways because so many people are hungry for the information!

Specifically, when evaluating who happEsextalk's target audience is, I get stuck because the purpose for creating happEsextalk was to provide sex positive education among all sexuality topics, not just among topics such as HIV/AIDS, Femininity, Masculinity, or talking with your children about sex. Therefore, I feel my target audience is pretty much everybody, and though feeling overwhelmed with that reality, I look to Laci Green for an example of phenomenal sex positive education for all. (By the way, if you know anybody who addresses all or multiple sexuality topics in sex positive ways, please let me know where I can look into them!!)

My goals with happEsextalk are to provide: 1) resources to those who ask (and those who didn't know they were in need of them in the first place), 2) different perspectives through creating discussions about sexuality topics in the media, and 3) answers to questions my followers have about personal experiences.

I'm familiar with adding posts to a queue (through Tumblr) so you're consistently posting even when you're not at your computer, which helps tremendously with time management while in this program, and I have posts from my Tumblr linked to my Twitter and Facebook Fan Page so all my followers are notified when something new posts; additionally, I post specifically to Facebook trying to start conversations, or create interest in the particular topic.

The issue that concerns me is, although I'm doing all these things, nobody is engaging with the posts or starting discussions from my questions. The fan page insights provided by Facebook show how many people view the posts, interact with the links/photos/videos on the posts, and provide demographics for those who "Like" the happEsextalk fan page, but I am obviously missing something that gets people interested enough to respond or engage in discussion.

When I look at other sex educators online, some from our program and some not, discussions begin almost instantly when they post on their blog or Facebook, providing people with that different perspective of thinking I am trying to achieve through happEsextalk.

As this fall semester comes to an end, I plan to spend the entire month of December re-vamping the happEsextalk approach, mission, goals, etc. - thanks to great advice and tips from Francisco Ramirez's workshop at this years Sexuality Careers Conference!


In preparation for this, I wanted to ask my peers:

1. Whether through blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc., how do you approach sexuality education online? 
2. What methods do you use (or have seen others use) to engage followers in the topics being posted about?  
3. What helpful resources can you recommend for happEsextalk's 2013 re-vamping brainstorm I have planned? (whether it be books, websites, personal tips, etc.)
4. If applicable to your career path, how do you currently (or plan to) market yourself as a sex educator? 

Providing sex ed by utilizing social networks is an important aspect of my identity as a sex educator, and I want to be able to do that effectively. While I feel confident in my ability to provide a starting point regarding human sexuality questions or concerns for people of all ages, it's more important for these people to also be confident in my abilities! Thanks in advance for any feedback, resources, and tips provided in the comments!! I welcome it all with open arms!!! :) 

Puse? That Sounds Dirty: Overcoming Language Barriers

Over the last week, since the presidential election, much has been made about the increasing role that the Latino and Latina populations play in deciding elections. Both democratic and  republican pundits have acknowledged the effects that the new demographics of the country have on politics. There are currently 40 million individuals in the U.S. who use the Spanish language primarily. This demographic shift affects the educational system and will therefore affect each of us as sexuality educators. Language barriers may become more common within classrooms as more students who speak Spanish are in classrooms with  teachers who speak English. The Bilingual Education Bill of 1968 requires that students be presented equal educational opportunities regardless of language. Sexuality educators within public institutions have to follow this bill, which means many of us will encounter a language barrier at some point. Language barriers can lead to misunderstandings between teacher and students. Language issues when teaching sexuality are unique because much of sexual language is slang. Therefore, the teacher must be aware of regular vocabulary and the slang within a foreign language. Learning and using slang terms within sexuality may help overcome language barriers and make the teacher relatable to students,but many slang terms are inappropriate and may be used by students to be offensive. Using slang in the classroom has led to legal issues for some teachers. Difficulties also arise when a teacher is surrounded by a classroom in which the students speak a language that the teacher is unable to understand but the students do understand. This makes the classroom difficult to control because students are able to speak without any fear of the teacher knowing. This can be frustrating for the teacher and disrupt class. Language barriers also affect interaction with parents, which can be a detriment to parental involvement.  There are solutions and resources that can be used to overcome language barriers. Each and every teacher learning Spanish is not an option moving forward and there will always be language barriers between some students and teachers.


-What as an educator can you do to overcome the language barriers you may face?
- What are your opinions regarding the use of slang terms in the classroom?

"We're all in this together" - President Obama

We are doing/plan to do our very best as sex educators, but educators are restricted by educational guidelines and  institutional bureaucracy and children are aggressively confronted with conflicting messages about sexuality every day through the media. What can we do to make sure that children get access to comprehensive, factual information about sexuality? I say we sneak in through the parents and guardians. I’m not trying to put any of us out of a job… I’m just suggesting we get some other adults with authority to join our cause.

Children will likely go to their parents or guardians with questions about sexuality at some point in their lives and the reactions they get can impact their view of the topic overall.  Discomfort begets  discomfort.

Why aren’t parents and guardians talking to their children about sex? It’s possible that they believe that the burden falls to us as professional educator, but that puts us in a terrible position because we are likely to impart our personal values in some way in classroom. It’s also possible that parents and guardians don’t have the time to prioritize educating their children around sexuality issues. Could it be that they simply don’t have the information they need? Maybe a basic set of guidelines would be helpful for parents.

There have been efforts  the past to encourage parents and guardians to get involved, but they have not been very effective. I can’t help but feel that it is partially our responsibly to try to teach parents and guardians how to talk to children about sexuality. It can create more spaces where healthy discussions about sexuality are possible.

How can we realistically make this happen?

Should we make this happen?

What snags might we hit in our quest combine our efforts with parenting at home?

Como se dice "vulva?"

As many of you know, tomorrow I begin my (hopefully long) career as a sexuality educator. I could barely stand the fact that I was even considered for this position before graduating. As my start date got closer and closer, I started to wonder exactly how affective of an educator can I really be for the Latino community. I am fluent in Spanish, I lived a huge chunk of my childhood in Mexico, and my home was practically a little Mexico! But by all accounts, I am as American as rabid consumerism. I speak English more than anything else, I listen to horrible pop music, and I have Individualistic, American values. Am I trying to help the Latino community...or am I trying to change it? Irregardless, I'm going to take this position head on and provide Norristown with the sexuality education they need. Why? 52% of Latina Adolescents have been pregnant at least once by the time they're 20 years old. (I've never been a gambler, my mom is, and she still can't understand how I missed these odds).

I have other concerns as well.

Disclosure.

While I can only speak for my cultural experience, Latinos as a whole are very curious about your background. Are you married? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you have kids? Where are you from? Where are your parents? --For the most part, I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from the Latino community about the work that I do. However, every community is different. And every community is going to react differently to my lack of desire for children or marriage.

Language.

I am fluent in Spanish. I was raised speaking the language every day of my life. However, all of my formal schooling and training has been in English. I know a lot of the translation for scientific terms and I'm (in my opinion) rather good at translating the actual meaning vs translating word for word (ala google translate.) But will all of this equal an good Spanish-language sexuality educator? I guess we will see soon enough.

Questions for you:
Are there any populations that you assumed you would be a shoe-in to work with that you may be thinking twice about?

Are there any steps you have taken to overcome this?

If you speak a second language, do you think you could teach affective education in a way that is as meaningful as it would be in your primary language?

Teaching to populations that make you nervous

I have a confession to make: I'm scared of teenagers. I have been since before I was a teenager myself. When I was a teenager, I was a homeschooled geek who avoided risky, impulsive, or rebellious activities. I never understood my peers and I knew they didn't think much of me. I was tremendously relieved to reach adulthood, where people were expected to behave the way I typically behaved (well, sort of.) But going back to interact with a group of teenagers has always been challenging for me.

First of all, I have flashbacks to my years of feeling profoundly uncool and entirely failing to make positive connections with teens when they were my peers. Second, I feel like I'm lacking the skills to present myself as a credible figure. I can't relate to them; I don't understand what drives them or where they're coming from. (Weirdly, this is not an issue for me when working with three-year-olds. I totally get three-year-olds.) I prefer a very relational teaching style, and feeling like I can't relate to an entire age demographic really sets me back.

This is not specifically about teenagers: I'm guessing others have some populations that they feel really awkward, uncomfortable, or nervous teaching to. I'm wondering how you deal with that? My instinct is to overprepare, even more than I would normally, so that I'm never stuck without something to say. To know my material absolutely cold so that there's one less thing I'll be nervous about. To go into a performative mode where I'm less responsive to the room and more focused on the presentation itself. I don't know that this is the best approach, but it's the one that reduces my anxiety, and I feel like it makes sense to play down the relational aspect of teaching if I don't feel like I can relate. But then it feels like I'm withdrawing and giving them less than my best just because of my own issues.

What do others think? Are there populations that you have a hard time teaching to, and how do you handle that?

Edit: After doing some online research, I found a few links that were helpful and reassuring. (Also, your comments are making me feel a lot better about this!) I found a couple of blogs of teachers who have generalized social anxiety, which is very reassuring to me: if people who are anxious around any population can teach, then I can teach to teenagers. Especially helpful was this post by littlemissteacherlady about applying teaching strategies to her own struggles with anxiety, by setting manageable and concrete learning objectives. I'd never thought of it that way before, but there can definitely be an aspect of self-teaching in terms of the way I teach, and (just as I wouldn't with a student) I don't have to expect myself to soar to "totally comfortable and at home" levels right from the get-go.

I found a great blog post from a black educator talking about her experiences of discomfort teaching groups of white people. Some of the things she says about overcoming it were helpful to me, such as recognizing that a lot of the feeling of "I'm out of place and they're all wondering why I think I have anything to say to them" is self-imposed, based on past experiences and not on anything the students in front of you are doing. I think treating every new classroom of teenagers as a blank slate would be helpful to me, rather than assuming that they're judging me as sooo lame just because that's what lots of teenagers have done in the past.

This article was neat, a teacher talking about how she relates to her students' academic struggles by comparing them with her own athletic struggles. It reminded me that even though my teenagerhood was very different from most people's, I may have analogous experiences, and that I can be creative in looking to find ways to relate.

Overall, I feel like I can take my current strategy (overprepare and shift to a more performative style) as a starting point, but work to expand my approach as I work with different groups of teenagers, so that maybe in a few years they won't be scary at all!

Teenaged Sexual Minorities

Last fall I read Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission (1996), which was a collection of personal accounts divided into subjects that extended past Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, and Sadomasochism.

Sidenote: While I was at the Widener Careers conference the other week a (prospective?) student asked me some questions about kink and BDSM. I said that perception varies by person; some people consider kink the umbrella under which BDSM falls, while others feel that BDSM is much broader than the letters that comprise the acronym, so many kinks fall under it. Despite the subtitle, I consider Different Loving a kink book, because much that is described in it can be done outside the parameters, or separate from a dominant and submissive relationship.


Around the same time I discovered an article that I fell in love with by Bezreh, Weinberg and Edgar (2012). Similar personal accounts were included, but there was also the idea that BDSM should be considered as a sexual minority that needs the same kind of education and outreach services for teens that have been established for LGBT youth. It was really poignant to hear that a large percentage of the interviewees could have benefited from hearing that what they were experiencing was "normal" when they were younger. Knowing how to experiment safely was also noted as a hindsight desire.

Although most of you know that teenagers aren't my cup of tea demographic, I still feel concern for them, especially with the advent of books such as 50 Shades of Grey, Rihanna videos, etc. It seems hard enough to get decent sexuality education in schools and we certainly had to fight for LGBT recognition/validation. In the foreseeable future, at least in the south, I cannot imagine that including BDSM or kink will be a reality (especially since from a work standpoint a lot of kink related practices are automatically listed as child abuse under some state laws).  I've come up with a few ideas for how I think accurate information could reach teens, but it doesn't really involve the classroom. I would like to hear from everyone of course, but especially educators within the school system about general guidelines and restrictions. For example, I don't know if there is more leniency with extracurricular organizations.

Questions:

• How do you feel about kink and/or BDSM being considered a sexual minority?
• Do you think kink and/or BDSM should be incorporated in secondary sexuality education? If so, how would you go about it?