Publication Alert!

I published original empirical research, as a first author!

I am currently a PhD Candidate in Child Study and Human Development at Tufts University. Throughout my time here, I have worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development. One of our flagship projects is the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. I recently used data from 6th through 12th grade participants in this study to assess the relationship between potentially problematic behaviors and indicators of positive development.

You can find the article here, or email me if you’re having trouble.

Here is a passage in which we discuss our findings related to sexual activity:
“We found a distinction between youth who had sex with protection and youth who had unprotected sex: members of the Low Risk group were increasingly likely to engage in protected sex as they got older, but had a very low probability of engaging in unprotected sex; in contrast, members of the High Risk group were likely to engage in unprotected sex but not protected sex. Other research has shown that two-thirds of adolescents will have sex before they are 18 years old, making sexual activity a normative behavior during adolescence (Crockett et al. 2006). Unprotected and/or unwanted sex is problematic, but sexual activity per se is not always linked to negative outcomes” (p. 987).

In simple terms, when we talk about teenagers having sex, let’s focus on what goes on in the sexual activity, for example, whether or not they are using protection. Sex itself, particularly sexual activity characterized by positive attributes such as the use of protection, can be part of overall positive development for young people. But it depends what happens and how it is experienced.

However, this study only differentiated between protected sex and unprotected sex. I would advocate for additional research that assesses the degree and kind of consent involved in a sexual encounter, in conjunction with other variables and other aspects of the process. I hope to design and implement such research myself, in the future.

Arbeit, M. R., Johnson, S. K., Champine, R. B., Greenman, K. G., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2014). Risk in Many Shapes and Sizes: Profiles of Potentially Problematic Behaviors across Adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(6), 971-990.

Testimony for An Act Relative to Healthy Youth

JOINT COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

***Testimony of Miriam R. Arbeit, M.A. in support of***

***H. 450/S. 209 An Act Relative to Healthy Youth***

May 14, 2013

Chairwoman Chang-Diaz, Chairwoman Peisch, and members of the Joint Committee on Education, I, Miriam R. Arbeit, am pleased to offer this testimony in support of H. 450/S. 209, An Act Relative to Healthy Youth.

I am a third-year doctoral student working on my Ph.D. in Child Development at Tufts University. As a youth development researcher, I enthusiastically commend the beneficial impact this bill would have on the youth and families of the Commonwealth.

An Act Relative to Healthy Youthis a critical legislative initiative that will help more young people have access to comprehensive, medically accurate, and age-appropriate sexual health education. It will also ensure that no young people are shamed or taught lies about their bodies and their choices while in public school.

In my research institute at Tufts, we study Positive Youth Development in diverse adolescents across the country, which means we see young people as resources to be developed, not as problems to be managed¹. This approach makes a vital difference when it comes to supporting adolescent health. For all of us – youth and adults – sex is an area of our lives that can be both positive and challenging – and, yes, even risky².  The best way to promote sexual health and address sexual risk is to talk about it. Sex education is a perfect opportunity for youth to develop skills like communication, healthy relationships, decision-making, planning, and critical thinking³. Such life skills can contribute to their positive development throughout adolescence and into adulthood⁴.

The power of this bill is that it sets meaningful standards for our schools. We don’t have to tell districts that they must include algebra in their math curricula, or that they cannot say triangles have five sides. But, unfortunately, we very much need to send these messages to districts regarding sex education: they cannot spread lies and they cannot omit vital information.

I used to be a health teacher in a Massachusetts school district. The health curriculum explicitly included sex ed and it was my job to teach HIV prevention to all of my students. But I was warned NOT to teach about homosexuality, condoms, or birth control, and not to discuss oral or anal sex.

How is anyone supposed to teach HIV prevention without discussing the life-saving potential of a correctly-used latex condom? How is anyone supposed to teach pregnancy prevention without discussing safe hormonal birth control methods and other medically available options? How is anyone supposed to promote sexual health without acknowledging the sexual world students already observe in the media every day^5,6?

I made a worksheet on the concept of consent. The goal was to establish the standard that when two people kiss each other or engage in other activities, it must be something they both want and agree to do.

I was reprimanded for making this worksheet and prohibited from discussing it with my students.

In 2011, 84% of high school students in the Commonwealth said they learned about HIV/AIDS in school and 49% said they learned how to use a condom⁷. That means that over one-third of our high school students learned about HIV without learning how to use condoms. What were they learning? There was nothing in place to protect those young people from the lies and shame that are too frequently invoked in the name of prevention. Such an approach leaves young people vulnerable to sexual coercion and more likely to have sex without protection^8,9.

It does not have to be this way. If schools provide sex education, we must require them to do it well.

We all agree that young people need quality education. And quality education includes medically-accurate, age-appropriate, comprehensive sexual health information. An Act Relative to Healthy Youth is one important step towards promoting the positive development of young people and helping them thrive in all areas of their lives.

Please Give a Favorable Report to An Act Relative to Healthy Youth

(H. 450/S. 209)

References

1. Lerner RM, Lerner JV, von Eye A, Bowers EP, Lewin-Bizan S. Individual and contextual bases of thriving in adolescence: a view of the issues. Journal of adolescence. 2011;34(6):1107–14. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22056088. Accessed June 13, 2012.

2. Tolman DL, McClelland SI. Normative Sexuality Development in Adolescence: A Decade in Review, 2000-2009. Journal of Research on Adolescence. 2011;21(1):242–255. Available at: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00726.x. Accessed March 8, 2013.

3. Kirby D. Emerging Answers 2007: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy; 2007:72–81. Available at: http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/EA2007/EA2007_full.pdf.

4. Lerner RM. Liberty: Thriving and civic engagement among American youth. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications; 2004.

5. Kim JL, Sorsoli CL, Collins K, et al. From sex to sexuality: exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of sex research. 2007;44(2):145–57. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17599272.

6. Ward LM. Understanding the role of entertainment media in the sexual socialization of American youth: A review of empirical research. Developmental Review. 2003;23(3):347–388. Available at: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0273229703000133. Accessed February 28, 2013.

7. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Health and Risk Behaviors of Massachusetts Youth. 2012;(May). Available at: http://www.doe.mass.edu/cnp/hprograms/yrbs/2011Report.pdf.

8. Fine MM, McClelland SI. Still Missing after All These Years. Harvard Educational Review. 2006;76(3):297–338.

9. Santelli J, Ott MA, Lyon M, et al. Abstinence and abstinence-only education: a review of U.S. policies and programs. The Journal of Adolescent Health. 2006;38(1):72–81. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16387256. Accessed July 24, 2012. 

Unconventional sex ed lessons from 50 Shades of Grey

In August, I entered the Feministing.com "So You Think You Can Blog" contest. Two blog posts were required for the first round: I submitted a revised version of my post from June on queer identity, and I wrote the post below on 50 Shades of Grey. Enjoy!

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When I read 50 Shades of Grey last week, I expected to be disappointed and dismayed. However, I was pleasantly surprised. I found the book to be quite a welcome interruption of the dominant script for sex and romance that I see in the media: boy meets girl, boy woos girl, boy gets girl to have sex with him without ever discussing sex as an activity or checking for her enthusiastic verbal consent. There are many reasons this dominant script is problematic.

I like 50 Shades of Grey because they actually talk about sex. They talk about sex before, during, and after they have sex. As a sex educator, when I sit with a group of teenagers and encourage them to talk before, during, and after sexual activity, they protest. Why? Maybe because that’s not how they see it happening in the media. Ever. So, thank you E.L. James for providing us with this opportunity to explore these all-too-unconventional sex ed lessons:

Spoiler alert: I will speak specifically about the sexual and romantic relationship between Ana and Grey as portrayed in the first book, but I will not give away any major plot details.

1. Consent. Except for that first kiss, Grey checks in with Ana before they have sex. Sometimes he does it by telling her exactly what he plans on doing. Sometimes he simply asks, “Trust me?” His words and actions clearly demonstrate that he cares whether or not he has her enthusiastic consent to be sexual with her. And when she says no, he stops.
2. Safewords. Used in kink, safewords can be helpful to all kinds of sexual partners for the maintenance of sexual consent. Grey suggests two safewords: yellow (“I’m reaching my limit”) and red (“I need you to stop now no questions asked”). By using these safewords, Ana can effectively withdraw her consent, and Grey will stop. The implementation of safewords demonstrates that consent is an ongoing process. Even if a person consents to sex at the beginning of a sexual encounter, that person ALWAYS has a right to withdraw consent at any time.
3. Toys. All kinds of sexual toys and props can be found to enhance all kinds of sexual pleasure. Check out some feminist toy stores like Good Vibrations and Babeland. While they used toys within a BDSM framework, toys can add pleasure and fun to lots of sexual scenarios.
4. Protection. They talk about preventing unwanted pregnancy, and they also talk about avoiding the transmission of sexually transmitted infections. All sexual partners should discuss these issues (when relevant). I wish that television and movies gave more of their precious screen time to modeling different ways to navigate and negotiate protection.
5. Power. I particularly appreciate that the book was originally developed as Twilight fan fiction. In Twilight, we see a man with exceptional power (for example, he’s a super-rich vampire and has lived for over a century). He falls for a clumsy, quiet teenage girl and overpowers her. In contrast, Grey is much closer in age to Ana (27 and 22, respectively) although he has similar “stalker tendencies” (as Ana dubs them) and is also extremely wealthy. Here’s the key difference: Grey knows he has these advantages over Ana. He cannot get rid of them and does not want to. But he writes up a contract, explains specifically what he wants, and asks Ana for her feedback. Then, he acknowledges that his responsibility is to attend to what she wants. He is not perfect. He does not do it perfectly. But the fact that Grey and Ana are directly negotiating power is important. Other couples with complex power dynamics may find other ways to negotiate that power and maintain a healthy relationship. The key lesson is the need to acknowledge the potential for abuse of power and to follow through with a plan regarding how to manage the power dynamics.
6. Honesty. As Grey says, “This isn’t going to work unless we are honest with each other.” And he doesn’t just say it, either. He actively prioritizes honest and open communication. He pays attention to what helps Ana be the most honest and what does not. And Ana, in turn, pushes him to be more honest with her, as well. They hold each other accountable.
7. Relationship diversity. What’s the difference between a friend, a girlfriend, and a sex slave? No, that’s not a setup for a bad joke (sounds pretty offensive, if it is). But it is a question that gets raised by this book. Sexual and romantic relationships are more diverse than we can give them credit for if we’re just trying to figure out whether someone is a girlfriend or a boyfriend or not. In this book, we get to see Grey and Ana exploring the terms of their relationship, both what it means between the two of them and what they communicate to others.
8. Emotions. Ugh, so messy. No matter what the relationship label, when two people are involved with each other sexually and/or romantically, their emotions matter. While Grey demonstrates attentiveness and responsiveness to Ana’s feelings, he falls short of consistently communicating his own feelings. Ana senses that his moods impact their interactions. If Grey could check in about his own emotional state, Ana wouldn’t be left guessing, and it could feel better and be safer for both of them.
9. Female sexual desire. Ana wants him. The substance of her desire has physical, genital, mental, and emotional components. She wants kisses. She wants touch. She wants sex. There are other people who want her, but she doesn’t want them, so she turns them down. But she wants sex with Grey, and she knows it, and she’s not afraid to show it.
10. Female sexual pleasure. I wonder how many people are reading this book and learning about their own capacity for pleasure in a new way. The explicit sex scenes include many different ways of stimulating the female body—nipples, clitoris, vagina—different ways to please her, to make her “wet” and thus more physically prepared for penetration, different ways for her to climax, to orgasm. Vivid descriptions of her inner experience while being aroused, stimulated, while climaxing. The emotions and exhaustion that flows through her after her orgasms. More, please! More popular fiction that shows different ways for females to experience different kinds of sexual pleasure. And more diverse depictions, please!

I don’t think this book shows a perfect model of sexual health, by any means. And I don’t mean to suggest as such. I could write another list of ten moments or themes I found totally problematic from a feminist perspective. However, I think it’s valuable, in this cultural moment, to start a conversation about what we can learn from this book. Ask your friend what they thought about Grey and Ana’s communication. Share with your friend how Ana’s description of sexual desire and sexual pleasure relates or fails to relate to your own experience. Ask a teenager in your life if they’ve heard of safewords before. And then go search for more novels and other media that show positive examples of sexuality and relationships, and let me know what you find!

Safe Space REMIX: Ground Rules for Dance Parties

In sex education, we use ground rules to build safe space during structured conversations. A lot of these safe space rules can be useful guidelines in everyday life, as well. In response to certain experiences from this past weekend, I’ve decided to remix these ground rules to apply to a specific situation in which groups of people come together to make themselves vulnerable: dance parties. What are some simple guidelines that we can use if we want to build a safe space in which to dance together for an evening?

Please tell me what you think, and add your own ideas to this list, in the comments.

1. Consent.

·      Check for enthusiastic consent before dancing with someone.

·      When someone says “no” to dancing with you, you say “okay, thanks.”

·      Note that consent is specific: Yes to dancing is a yes to dancing, not to anything else. You need to ask again if you want something else. And they may or may not say yes again.

2. Respect.

·      Respect other people: their bodies, their dance moves, their clothes, their choices…

·      Respect the physical space: help keep it clean, watch where you put your things, clean up after yourself…

3. Sharing space.

·      Step out of the center of the dance floor to give other people and other circles a chance to fill it.

·      Watch where you fall and flail so you don’t hurt other people.

·      Be aware of which spaces are getting too crowded, and where there is more space available.

4. Drink responsibly (or not at all).

·      Know that “I’m drunk” is no excuse for violating any of the other safe space guidelines.

·      Stop drinking before you get sloppy.

·      Or on second thought, maybe “no drinking” is another option.

5. Sex-positivity.

·      Enjoy the ways in which dancing connects you to your own body; respect the ways in which other people are enjoying their own bodies.

·      Limit (or avoid) explicitly sexual behavior, for example, dance-floor make-out sessions.

6. Confidentiality.

·      The dance floor is a communal space and is not for public display.

·      Ask for consent before taking or posting pictures.

·      Avoid gossiping about people’s dance-floor behaviors after the party is over.

7. Self-care.

·      Go where you need to be: Dance alone when it feels good; dance with a dance partner when it feels good; join a group when it feels good.

·      Ask for help when you need it.

·      Speak up if someone hurts you or makes you uncomfortable, even if you think it’s by accident.

8. Accountability.

·      Building safe space is an ongoing process; be open to feedback about your behavior.

·      Be sensitive to and aware of other people’s boundaries and comfort levels.

·      Avoid making assumptions about other people.

9. Love your DJ.

·      Show appreciation that the DJ is an artist bringing you a gift.

·      Do not touch the DJ’s equipment.

·      Make meaningful requests that you think your fellow dancers would enjoy, too.

10. Celebrate.

·      Make your body feel good; make yourself feel good.

·      Include everyone in the celebration.

·      Encourage everyone to express themselves through dance.

My hope is that these guidelines would help people create a space together in which they could all really let loose and personally get the most out of their dancing experience while also connecting with each other through the process of dancing.

These are just my ideas, and I’m just getting started. I look forward to getting your feedback and working through this draft to produce something that can really be useful in future dance party situations. Please tell me what works for you, what feels unreasonable, what seems off, what you think is missing, etc. 

I Chaired a Symposium

“Positive Approaches to Studying Adolescent Sexuality Development and Sexual Health” was the title of the Symposium I chaired at the biennial conference of the Society for Research on Adolescence in Vancouver this month. Chairing was a really exciting experience, and I’m so grateful I had the opportunity. Many people have asked me about what it really meant and what I did. I’ll start by explaining some of the process, and then I’ll share what it was like for me on the day of the Symposium.

The process began in June last year, when Ed Bowers, a Research Assistant Professor with whom I work closely at Tufts, started talking to me about putting together a submission for the conference. He mentioned the idea of chairing, which basically means organizing a 90-minute session around a particular topic or theme. If you want to do it, he said, you need to send out emails quickly to see who might present at your session. I was about to take a vacation to get married, but I was so eager to put together more conversations about sexuality, and particular adolescent sexuality, that I went right to it. I emailed scholars whose work I admire greatly, invited them to join me, and we put together a submission that included their abstracts and a statement from me about how it all fit together and matters. Then, on the last day of the conference, in the second-to-last time slot, I got to introduce them to a room full of about 40 colleagues.

Sexuality development is a healthy, normative, and important part of adolescence. Much of the existing research on adolescent sexuality frames sexual behavior as inherently risky and requiring prevention. This symposium addressed the merits of pursuing a research agenda that involves identifying and assessing indicators of positive sexuality development in adolescence and analyzing how societal and relational factors may affect different youth in different ways, particularly with regards to race and gender.

Emily Impett was going to present with us, but family needs kept her from being able to attend this conference, unfortunately. However, we had two wonderful presentations from Monique Ward and Deborah Tolman and a discussion by Sara McClelland.

Monique Ward asked, “Will it help?” and presented her work on identifying socialization discourses that promote sexual risk and sexual health among African American youth. She did a study asking youth to report the messages they receive about sex from their parents and their peers. Her presentation focused on four prominent types of messages: promoting abstinence, framing sex as relational, promoting sex-positivity, and furthering gendered sexual roles. I really enjoyed this presentation because one of my favorite sex ed activities is asking participants to map the messages that they receive about sex from parents and peers (and I also often include media, religion, and other sources of messages). Looking at this research allowed me to think concretely about how the messages we get relate to our behavior. Ward also focused on sexual cognitions, looking at how different patterns of messages relate to different thoughts and beliefs about one’s own sexuality. I would love to expand the “messaging” sex ed activity to help participants identify how the messages they receive contribute to their sexual cognitions and, in turn, how those messages may or may not shape their sexual behavior. On a larger scale, this research poses the question, “How do we talk to young people about sex and sexuality, and what impact does that have?”

Next, Deborah Tolman asked, “What do you like about that?” and presented her work on power and pleasure in girls’ experience of fellatio. This research is a snapshot of a larger qualitative study Tolman conducted in which she asked girls to tell stories about their experiences giving oral sex to boys. She said she found the girls mostly reported negative experiences, although “punctuated” by positive elements. This presentation explored the themes in the positive punctuations, the expressions of power and pleasure. When prompted, “Tell me about a time when giving oral sex was pleasurable for you?” most participants said, “huh?” Their stories included lots of coercion and feeling “nasty,” but some girls expressed certain “nuances of power” (Tolman’s phrase) in stimulating another person, and some felt “possibilities for pleasure (again, Tolman’s) emotionally, physically, or in enjoying their own competence in performing the task. For me, this presentation raised a lot of questions about the purpose of sex-positivity. What does it mean to explore and honor the positive aspects of these girls’ experiences and at the same time recognize and publicize the ways in which they felt coerced and the ways in which male desire and expectations problematically trump their own in their sexual worlds?

After these two presentations, Sara McClelland shared some really insightful words and posed many key questions. Here are some highlights from the notes I took:

On sex:
• What is the point of sex?
• What do you want, and what do you do because you have to?
• How do you know when you want something? How do you know that you liked it?

On researching sex:
• What do we want to observe, to say that an expression of sexuality is developmentally appropriate and good? Do these indicators look the same in all bodies?
• What are we after as sex researchers? What are we idealizing?
• How do we prepare our participants to talk about sex with us? What power dynamics get recreated in the space of an interview?

On teaching youth about sex:
• How do we want to socialize young people?
• What do we want to say to young people about sex?
• What should we say about pleasure?
• What do we want young people to want?

My only regret is that we didn’t have the time to all pull up a chair and start hashing out our positions on these questions. I am so honored to have been a part of this fun and fascinating conversation, and I look forward to continuing to learn from these three scholars as much as I can and as often as I can as I work my way into this field.

Better, Bolder, Hotter

First: watch this video.

Lyrics here.

Rebecca Drysdale made this video for Dan Savage’s It Gets Better Project, and I hereby dub this video my favorite thing on the Internet. I challenge you to find something online that I will love more than this video–seriously, go for it.

I love so many things about this video.

It’s hot and fun and funny.
Having fun has a very important role to play in the process of enjoying and promoting sex positivity. After all, sex is about pleasure and ecstasy and just plain feeling that. Watching this video makes me feel good. Pleasure is an important theme throughout the video—what the youth find pleasurable, what adults find pleasurable. In addition, the video itself provides an opportunity for us (the viewers) to enjoy the pleasures of the entertainment media—comedy, music, and dance.

It makes me want to throw a dance party.
I have been searching for sex positive hip-hop and pop music for many years now. This song promotes positive messages about queerness, community, and sexual empowerment. What other song would you rather dance you? (Read: another challenge for you to post sex positive links in the comment section.)

It is an active, multidimensional demonstration of how better it can get.
She did not just tell us that it gets better–she proved it by making this video. We can see that she is a smart, talented, edgy, hilarious young artist. She also shows the personal, professional, and sexual confidence necessary to sing loud and proud a plethora of explicit sexual slang and anti-gay slurs effectively used to communicate a clear positive message. Furthermore, she has a community. You heard her at the end–there were over 50 people involved in making the video! They embrace her artistic talents and demonstrate their support of her sexual identity. If that’s not better, I don’t know what is.

Special shout outs to Rebecca Drysdale, The It Gets Better Project, and The Trevor Project for their ongoing support of LBGTQ youth. Thank you!

Educated, Empowered and Resilient

Yesterday was the first day of classes! I am taking a seminar in resilience, which opened with ten minutes of free writing about what we think the concept of resilience entails. I love free writing as an educational technique, so I was thrilled. I also found it quite useful to take the time to frame my interest in resilience in terms of my mission of promoting positive adolescent sexual development:

Resilience is the process of getting through difficulty with continued strength and positive development. I think of resilience as a dynamic aspect of person and context that helps to foster positive development even through negative occurrences such as violence, trauma, illness, oppression, or other normal and abnormal challenges.

I believe resilience to be an important concept in the study of adolescent sexual development because adolescents must demonstrate resilient functioning in order to resist negative stereotypes and achieve personal agency within our sexist and sex negative culture. What characteristics of individual adolescents and of the contexts in which they live will contribute to their resilience and thus to their positive sexual development? How does resilience manifest in girls, boys, and transgendered youth? What kind of resilience do girls need in order to access positive feelings about their bodies and their sexuality?

We can ask questions such as the ones above in order to seek different approaches to promoting resilience within the realm of sexual development, and we can ask questions from a different angle. We might find that sex positive educators and activists are already engaged in promoting adolescent resilience in a variety of life contexts. How can sex education and, in particular, sex positive education, contribute to adolescent resilience overall? How can the knowledge, skills, and attitudes taught in a sex positive classroom or youth group help youth demonstrate resilience in a variety of situations in the realm of sexuality as well as in other aspects of their lives?

These two approaches to forming questions about the relationship between adolescent resilience and adolescent sexual development reflect the double meaning I intend in the title of this blog, “Sex Ed Transforms.” Through the reading, thinking and writing that I do in the process of blogging and in my other work on sex ed, I hope to transform the approaches we take to sex ed and our conceptions of what sex ed can entail. In addition, I believe that through reading, thinking, writing, and educating others and ourselves about issues of sexuality and sex education, we can transform our communities, our world, and ourselves. I am looking forward to discovering how the study of resilience can play an important role in both of these processes.

The 2010 Teen Pregnancy Institute

This week I had the honor of attending the 2010 Teen Pregnancy Institute: Expecting Success For Youth And Young Families, hosted by the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy. I spent the day learning with other educators, counselors, researchers and advocates invested in improving the sexual health and well-being of teenagers in our state.

When we came together in one space, I really did start to feel like there are a whole lot of us – people who work with teenagers and care about them and have the courage to talk to them about sex. No, not just the courage, it's more than that. The ganas. The instinct. The drive.

I wish I could take each one of the attendees out to dinner and hear their stories.

My day started in Consuela's workshop on the importance of giving teenagers access to words, concepts, and images with which to imagine, assess, and ask for healthy relationships. She challenged us to discuss how healthy relationships look similar and different for teenagers than they do for adults. What are the components of a good date? What does a healthy first month of dating look like?

When I learned to play tennis at summer camp, the counselor assured us that she would tell us when she saw us swinging our racket correctly, so we could learn what the correct swing felt like.

Have you ever told a teenager that you thought something was healthy and positive about their dating relationship?

In my second session, I learned about specific ways to teach sexuality through a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) framework from Liz of Planned Parenthood. When her coworker Mindy took over to introduce the parent engagement component of their curriculum, Get Real, I was captivated by the overlap between our fears as sexuality educators and the fears that parents have when their children enter our classes. The tools that Get Real provides for parents are really just conversation starters. A simple question like, "Are there any kids at your school you don't like?" appears not to be about sexuality in all, but it can clear the way for exploring relevant emotions and communicating core values.

In the afternoon, Kelly from the Cambridge Health Alliance launched a conversation about what a sex-positive national culture might look like, using slides from this Slate article. What would it take for American teens to start hormonal contraception before ever having sex? What would it take for American teens to carry a condom with them on a regular basis? And, how can we get from here to a place where American teens have an open conversation with their parents about what they want to do sexually and who they want to do it with before they actually start having sex.

Can such a world exist?

It can in the Netherlands. (Watch the Slate slideshow. Really.)

To end the day, everyone gathered together to watch The Gloucester 18, a story about teen parents who made national news. I have so much to learn about the lives of pregnant and parenting teens. See this film, then help push back on the stereotypes.

Thank you so much to the Massachusetts Alliance On Teen Pregnancy for putting together this incredible day of learning and community-building. Thank you to each of the presenters for sharing your passions, and to everyone I met or reconnected with for showing up and stepping up.

Making Mistakes

I made a mistake today.  I left my reading glasses behind at the gym and had to go back to get them.  I’ll probably make a mistake tomorrow too, although I don’t know yet what it will be.  In fact, I’m going to make tons of mistakes this year, and actually I find that thought pretty frightening, given that it’s my first year of graduate school and my first year sharing a home with my partner.  Those are some huge responsibilities, and I shouldn’t be going around making so many mistakes.

Given the inevitability of mistake-making, the meaningful question is not whether I will make mistakes, but rather, which mistakes will I make?  Although mistakes are, by nature, accidental, I can still engage in a practice of intentional mistake management, choosing to increase my risk for making some mistakes while decreasing my risk for others.

In my mere two weeks as a graduate student, I’ve already made mistakes—for example, I responded to a question in class with the wrong answer.  But I’m ok with the risk of making that kind of mistake again because I’m in this program for the purpose of learning.  Others mistakes, however, I don’t want to repeat, like when I wore casual clothes to visit colleagues at another university.  I felt awkward and out of place.  Next time I’ll err on the side of dressing up.

Intentional mistake management could be a powerful concept for sexual health, as it offers a approach with more potential to promote sex-positive values in combination with risk reduction practices.

Since we all make so many mistakes, we’re going to make mistakes in our sex lives as well.  A person might kiss someone and later decide just to be friends. Another person might invite a date to stay overnight and in the morning yearn for solitude.

As an educator, I would ask people to consider which mistakes they are not willing to risk and which mistakes they could willingly leave themselves vulnerable to making.  Once people decide they are unwilling to mistakenly contract HIV, they can commit to using caution.  Once people decide they unwilling to mistakenly violate someone else’s boundaries, they can make a habit of asking for consent.

Most mistakes are tolerable.  Some are not.  To what extent do you think we can commit to preventing intolerable mistakes, in sex and in life? How do we discern which mistakes we can tolerate and which we cannot? Furthermore, how can sexuality education support individuals in making that determination for themselves?

I'm studying adolescent sexuality!

About a year and a half ago, I began pursuit of a new stage of my career. As I spoke with other sexuality educators and activists, I became acutely aware of the need for research on adolescent sexuality that can inform effective sexuality education programs. I decided to apply to graduate school so that I could do this research.

I am honored to say that I just began a Ph.D. program in Child Development at Tufts University. Throughout my five years as a student at Tufts, I will be working as a research assistant at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, directed by Dr. Richard Lerner.

Dr. Lerner's work appeals to me because of his strength-based approach to the study of adolescence, known as positive youth development (PYD). As the wording suggests, PYD is to the concept of adolescence what sex-positivity is to sexuality. What is “adolescent negativity,” you might ask? Dr. Lerner cites the stereotyping of adolescence as a period of “storm and stress,” one crisis followed by another, in which all that parents can do is make sure their kids aren’t on drugs or dropping out of school. But that’s not the whole story, nor is it the most healthy and helpful perspective. In fact, adolescents have all sorts of strengths and tons of potential.

Having a positive view on the potential of adolescents to be happy, healthy and productive people is a prerequisite to believing in the benefits of educating adolescents in a sex-positive way.

I plan to use the positive youth development approach for the study of adolescent sexual development, focusing on how school-based curricula and programs can proactively support adolescents in developing sexual agency, sexual ethics, and the social, emotional, and cognitive skills relevant to making healthy decisions and engaging in fulfilling relationships.

I face many challenges in pursuing this research, not the least of which is managing the sex-negativity that impedes even preliminary attempts to gather data from adolescents about their sexual beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. But I’m going to figure it out, and it will be worth it!