the opposite end of abstinence-only sex education

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Irvine511

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okay, i'm interested to see what people think about this, and i won't make too many comments because i think gut reactions are important, so i don't want to potentiall bias any readings.

please note -- this was *allegedly* "passed out" in schools. i'm willing to bet that it wasn't passed out, like a pop quiz, but probably made available by a visiting speaker. it comes from a very conservative website looking to shock, so try and evaluate it on it's own and not with in the shock! horror! context it's placed in.

this is also reasonably graphic, and includes nudity.

(now everyone's going to check it out...)

http://www.article8.org/docs/news_events/glsen_043005/black_book/black_book_inside.htm
 
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I don't buy that this was handed out to school kids either. I do think it is a *bit* explicit to be handed out in a school setting though so if it was made available by a speaker, I'm not sure if that was totally appropriate. On the other hand, anything that encourages safer sex is a good thing, even it makes people a bit uncomfortable.

As for its intended purpose i.e. safe sex awareness for gay men, I don't see a problem. No need to candy coat it or use clinical language :shrug:
 
I think the tone of the flyer (or whatever it's called) is not really my style, but perhaps it's an attempt to bring all this a bit closer to home wordswise. I actually had to read it twice before I understood what "dookie on the noodle" meant so I think they have to be careful not to make this sound too hip up to the point where people won't understand it.

Other than that, the contents seem to be accurate and that's what really counts. I'm not sure if the age is appropriate, what age are kids in middle school?
 
yeah, this is maybe a little *too* informative for middle school kids. particularly with the listing of dance clubs at the end.

i have a hard time believing this was handed out at school, too. people are freaking out over basic sex ed materials in schools--some people's heads would explode if they were to find this in their kids' backpacks.
 
i had the same reaction that i do when i see gay pride parades -- understand the need for it, understand that the intentions are good, but still embarassed at the constant and consistent replications of stereotypes.

i also HATE it when people try to write in oh-so-hip speak ... i found it insulting when i was 17 and i do today.

it's great to pound home a safe sex message, as this one does, but it also seems to embrace promiscuous behavior that is almost an expectation, one that gay men need to liberate themselves from. i am far from a prude, and certainly sexually active, but i don't think it's a good idea to assume that cruising in a park is expected activity ... but then again, this happens, so wrapping it in a safe-sex message is, i suppose, a good way of dealing with reality.

i did like the point-blank condom instructions, though. i'm sure there's more than a few men -- gay or straight -- who really dont' know how to use one properly.
 
A little clarification: The literature in question was available not passed out but available on a free literature table. This was at a conference sponsored by GLSEN, a group that works to teach about homosexuality in schools. Yes the conference was attended by many middle schoolers and high schoolers but this was not in a school, sponsored by a school or had anything to do with a sex ed class.

BTW that website is one hate filled article after another.
 
I agree with everything said so far. Maybe it's just my generation of gay men, or maybe I hang out with slutty guys, but cruising in parks is still alive and well so I don't have a problem with that being included, although as you say, Irvine, promoting the stereotype sucks; still, it exists so what are you going to do. For the most part it seems that hooking up online is happening more than hooking up in parks but I got lost in Seattle last year and suddenly found myself driving through a park at night that was very, very busy.

"Dookie on the noodle" was just dumb.
 
Do Miss America said:
A little clarification: The literature in question was available not passed out but available on a free literature table. This was at a conference sponsored by GLSEN, a group that works to teach about homosexuality in schools. Yes the conference was attended by many middle schoolers and high schoolers but this was not in a school, sponsored by a school or had anything to do with a sex ed class.

I don't see anything wrong in that case, but I do think it's a little "out there" to be used as a teaching tool in schools. I'm just conservative in that way, but I'm all for safe sex promotion and some abstinence thrown in too. I think parents should know about what is being used in sex ed.

There are things going on in MA right now w/ some incidents in schools. There was a guy in Lexington who was arrested for going to his kids school-he was objecting to a kids book that had a reference to "two mommies", something like that. This horrible radical "Christian" group (they're not Christians at all as far as I'm concerned but they call themselves that) are now going to that school and another to "protest" and spew their hate. So something tells me they might be behind this leaflet story, who knows? Anything they can try to bolster their twisted beliefs and hatred.
 
I don't have a problem with the pamphlet.

Am I supposed to? :shrug:
 
joyfulgirl said:
I agree with everything said so far. Maybe it's just my generation of gay men, or maybe I hang out with slutty guys, but cruising in parks is still alive and well so I don't have a problem with that being included, although as you say, Irvine, promoting the stereotype sucks; still, it exists so what are you going to do. For the most part it seems that hooking up online is happening more than hooking up in parks but I got lost in Seattle last year and suddenly found myself driving through a park at night that was very, very busy.

"Dookie on the noodle" was just dumb.



well, i worry about everything.

i'm well on my way to being a nervous mother one day.

;)
 
Irvine511 said:


well, i worry about everything.

i'm well on my way to being a nervous mother one day.

;)

Yes, gay men have the cruising in parks stereotype to deal with, but look at all the hideous straight stereotypes. I am horrified by straight people everyday, but I have the luxury of generally not being judged because of bimbo chicks. I wish people could just understand that it's no different for gays: there are individuals, and there are stereotypes, and every kind of behavior you can imagine, just like in the hetero community.
 
I thought this was interesting..

The Senator's Guide To Safe Sex

By Hanna Rosin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 27, 20005

It's not every day that a U.S. senator gives a lecture and slide show about risky sexual activities -- complete with gross pictures of the naughty bits.

This was Sen. Tom Coburn's lecture on sexually transmitted diseases, held yesterday for the young congressional staff in the place where such things are talked about: the basement -- in this case, of the Capitol. It is no small thing to ask an intern who is trying his best to mimic a working adult to come to a lecture like this in the middle of a workday, considering the danger of being transported back to the blushing days of high school sex ed.


This was Sen. Tom Coburn's seventh lecture on the subject for young congressional staff

Coburn, a conservative, Bible-quoting Republican from Oklahoma, tried his best to put the newbies at ease; his staffers called the lecture "Revenge of the STDs" after the "Star Wars" movie, gave out fliers featuring Yoda and C-3PO saying "Oh, how dreadful!" and played campy horror music from "The Phantom Menace" as people filed in. In the back they served pizza and sodas.

For the first few minutes, it worked, as Coburn flipped through slides showing dry facts and figures about STDs, that 2 of every 3 new cases occur in people younger than 25, that most occur in people with multiple sexual partners. Then Coburn got serious. He flipped to his next slide. It showed a part of the male anatomy but not as a science textbook drawing; this was the real thing, and a particularly sorry example; it looked like it had been left outside by mistake and then rusted in some unnatural way, with scaly dry spots, and warts on an angry red background.

This image was now projected up on a wall of the U.S. Capitol, and the mood shifted instantly. None of the 160 or so audience members shrieked, or giggled, or ran out of the room. They're not 15 anymore, and this is a professional environment. The chatter stopped; everyone looked straight ahead, or down at their BlackBerries. A large number of women crossed their arms over their chests. Most everyone seemed encapsulated in the bit of air around them, afraid to move or touch the person sitting next to them. The half-eaten slices of pizza, now cooling on laps, seemed deeply unappetizing.

This is the seventh year that Coburn, who is a family doctor in Muskogee, has presented his slide show; he showed it for six years when he was in the House, and totes it around Oklahoma, and always he begins it the way he did yesterday: "I'm going to try not to give you my opinion," he says. "I'm just going to give you scientific facts." But the combination of Coburn, sex and the U.S. Capitol does not get away without controversy.

"His unwitting patients should get a second opinion," says Bill Smith, vice president of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. "What Dr. Coburn did was resort to typical scare tactics, showing pictures of genital warts that have gone untreated for decades, even though genital warts are highly treatable."

However, even Smith admitted, after hearing a report from staff members who attended, that this was a "different Sen. Coburn. In a lot of cases he did set his ideology aside."

Conservative Christian leaders and STDs are in many ways a natural match. Seen from a biblical mind-set, the growing prevalence of STDs looks like the wages of sin, the price American society pays for the sexual revolution. And even medical experts agree that delaying sex until age 19 or 20 lowers the risk, and the only sure way to avoid ever contracting an STD is to be in a relationship where neither person has ever had another sexual partner.

During his 40-minute slideshow, Coburn avoided any spiritual overtones and spoke in his usual brisk clinical way. Still, Smith detected bias, taking issue, for example, with Coburn's contention that condoms are only 69 percent effective in preventing HIV; Smith says the latest studies show condoms to be 99 percent effective.

But Smith did give Coburn credit for saying during the question-and-answer portion, "Condoms do reduce the risk of transmission, and they work very well against HIV. If you decide to do any risky sexual behavior, use a condom." Being a family doctor adds a dose of realism to his view; Coburn mentioned that he recently delivered a baby to a 12-year-old.

Coburn always offers to see people in private after the lecture, and his staff say 10 or so people always take him up on it and many more ask follow-up questions after his lectures. No doubt at the very least he's filling in basic gaps in knowledge.

"You keep mentioning the word 'monogamy'," a staffer named Roland Foster recalls one young woman asking after a lecture. "What is that?"

"That's when you have sex with only one partner," Coburn responded.

"You mean at a time?" :lol:
 
Hmmmm....I have to say I don't think the content of that pamphlet is appropriate to hand out in schools. However I suspect it is probably a fake in any case.
 
from what i've read, the pamphlet is available in GLESN's offices in Boston, but it was brought to a conference held at a school, and it was a mistake and GLSEN has both apologized, reprimanded the representative who brought the pamphlet, and has said that they will do more to train their representatives who travel to conferences in the future.

there's also conspiracy whispers, that the representative may have been a plant from a right wing Christianist organization like the website that i originally linked to, that is trying to "demostrate" the "effects" of gay marriage in massachusetts -- you know, trying to find examples that marriage equality is a Trojan Horse for the "radical homosexual agenda" to turn everyone gay.

what's important is the following:

1. it was not offered by a teacher to a captive class
2. it was not offered by a teacher acting as a representative for the school
3. it was a mistake

not sure what else to say.

also, i'm going to try and use a new word that i've come across that i think might help dialogue in FYM.

it's technically incorrect to use the term "Muslim radicals" or "Muslim fanatics." the correct phrase would be "Islamist radicals" or "Islamist fanatics." why? to differentiate between Muslims, and those who use and abuse Islam to persecute and consolidate power.

while what's going on in the Muslim world is far more volatile, and the consequences far more dire, than what's going on in the US, i do think it's appropriate -- and, hopefully, the Christians in FYM who still get queesy when i refer to Christians (despite the endless qualifying adjectives i try to tack on) will find this more respect ful -- to start using the phrase "Christianist fundamentalists" or "Christianist Right Wing Politics" or "Christianist agenda." i hope this differentiates between Christians, the religion of Christianity, and those who seek to use Christianity as a social control device.
 
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