feminist community.because it was good for me, in my early life, very good. and because it's obvious that there are still feminists on livejournal everywhere! heck just on my friends list, like 70 people said they were interested in feminism... I didn't even think that many people read my livejournal! so it pains me that livejournal has no feminist community. Also unlike others I'm in, I don't even think
feminist was killed by generic livejournal death - I think it was ontd_feminism that did it. it got really popular, so people kinda started ignoring the classic feminism Q&A in favor of debating katy perry quotes.so I have a slow plan to put up some shareable feminist q&a memes and see if it works.
here's today's:
Inspired by Bioethics professor Alice Dreger live tweeting her kid’s abstinence/fear-based sex education class, how was sex ed where you went to school? Why do you think comprehensive sex ed is so important?
This topic is actually quite dear to my heart.
In the early 2000s I started up this website called advicenators where people would ask for advice. the idea was that everyone was an advice columnist, you got your own page with questions you'd picked and your answers, you could pick the colors and everything.
It got really popular among young teens. when it kinda "hit big" we suddenly had 10,000 and then 20,000 and then 30,000 active users, and that's when I pulled away from the project and actually gave my site away to another coder... but that's another story.
The thing is with all the teen users, we had a lot of sex & contraceptive questions. How can you not get pregnant, could I be pregnant, "I heard that you can't get pregnant if..." sorts of things.
and it really demonstrated to me that in the absence of comprehensive sex ed, kids can and WILL make shit up. And they will take to heart whatever their friends make up. Very few humans in the history of the world ever said, "I haven't been properly educated on the details of sex, so I guess I'd just better not ever have it."
hell, now that I'm a parent I see it's the same with everything. your toddler will walk and talk. you don't teach them this. some toddlers try and walk long before they're coordinated enough to catch themselves when they fall, so they end up with very bruised foreheads. luckily the bruises heal up pretty quick and there's no permanent or life-altering experiences as a result of this trial and error.
I was taught everything I wanted to know about sex, and was still very responsible about it, I was at least 18 or 19 before I had sex and then it was only in committed long term relationships, I was on the birth control pill and using condoms. So I am living proof that sex ed does not turn every 14 year old into some kind of crazy slutbot. And even if it does, shit people, it's sex, we need to get over some of the bullshit issues we have with it.
sex ed sex ed sex ed. in public schools. for everyone. the data supports it, logic supports it, everyone deserves it.
