Jennifer Dziura writes life coaching advice weekly here on TheGloss, and career coaching advice Fridays on TheGrindstone.
I have this fantasy wherein I am a sex educator who goes around to high schools.
Not the condom-on-a-banana kind of sex educator (although the kids need that, too). No, I go around teaching a sexual ethics class that, amazingly, liberal parents, Orthodox parents, Muslim parents, and everyone else is fine with.
How would that be possible?
Well, anytime you want to get a group of disparate people to agree on something, start with basic principles. Israelis and Palestinians? Hummus is tasty! Pro-choice and pro-life people? It is totally wrong for the government of China to force women to have abortions they do not want. I want to set up a table at some kind of abortion-related protest, show photos of sad Chinese women with lots of bruises, and just watch as both sides are like, “Um, that is awful.” And then I’d refuse to reveal what “side” I was on. (I’d have pre-French-braided my hair all Utah-compound style, just to throw people off.)
So, back to sex ed. I feel like even good liberal parents, the ones who give their kids all the facts well before they could ever need them, are sometimes at a loss for what else to add. Like, “But you probably shouldn’t have sex at all.” Or, “But you should wait as long as possible,” or “Have fun and tell me if you need health care!” Or, probably, nothing at all.
Even the parents who are preaching abstinence are sometimes aware that, “God says no” isn’t that convincing to their kids, and that even with all the information about pregnancy and diseases, obviously pretty much everybody in the world around them is fucking anyway, much the same way we all still drive on the highway even though it’s a “high-risk behavior.”
So, how come nobody ever just tells all the teenagers:
“If you start having sex, there is a significant chance you will become so preoccupied with it that it’ll be hard to keep your grades up and get into a good college.”
Also:
“Sex can result in a wide range of emotional responses: happiness, detachment, regret, vulnerability, gloating, etc. It’s possible that, if two people have sex, their responses to it will be different and that this will feel terrible for at least one of them. Discuss.”
We can all get behind that, right? Those are some pretty basic ideas that I feel like hardly anyone ever says out loud, especially to young people.
So, let’s talk about adults, and also that Coors Light beer coaster thing I picked up in a bar because it was appalling.
Here, I think, are some basic principles of sexual ethics I hope we can all get behind.
(By the way, before BrosWhoWishWomenWouldShutUp.com links here and bombs the comments, I’ll throw out there that I am in a serious relationship and everything is great, thanks. This column is not an act of revenge against anyone; if I wanted revenge, I would not obtain it via passive-aggressive acts of blogging. I’m not sure how I would obtain it, but I would consult the Victorians for some excellent ideas on machinations and dueling.)
