8 Feb, 2012

10 Reasons Why Your Daughter Won’t Talk to You About Sex

By |2021-08-19T17:40:24-04:00February 8th, 2012|Categories: Public Health & Social Work|Tags: , |0 Comments

 

In the work that I’ve done with young women throughout the years, I’ve come across one important thing: while young people may build their thinking and decisions based on their interaction with their peers, many young people would actually prefer to get facts about sex and sexuality from family members and other trusted adults.

When I was younger, my mom didn’t really talk to be me about sex and sexuality. When it came to sex, my mother spoke more of the consequences of pregnancy, compared to sexually transmitted infections, self-esteem, and even pleasure. As a young person, I wondered why my parents chose to put my sister and I in those classes where that focused more on showing pictures of people with STIs. (You know those classes!)

At the same time, I remember not being comfortable speaking with my mom about sex, sexuality or anything remotely close to it. I perceived that she would shut me down, that she would think I was having sex even when I wasn’t, or I believed that I would be lying and not telling the truth.

Given that I do most of my work with women and girls, today’s post is focused on the mothers and other female caregivers in a young girl’s life. Young people are more likely to open up to parents and caregivers when they feel valued, respected, and that their voices and opinions are going to be heard. Here are 10 reasons your daughter* may not be comfortable talking with you (and some tips you can take to help her open up to you when she’s ready.) (more…)

30 Jan, 2012

Parent-Child Communication: Keepin’ it Real Around the Kitchen Table

By |2021-08-19T17:39:51-04:00January 30th, 2012|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: , |0 Comments

 

Several years back, I co-facilitated a workshop called “Keepin’ It Real Around the Kitchen Table: Sparking the Discussion About Sex Between Teens and Families”. I’ve facilitated this workshop on and off throughout the years, and while the audience dynamic changes every time I facilitate this workshop, one thing remains the same: 1) Adults feel that young people don’t listen to them, and 2) young people feel that adults don’t listen to them either.

As a subject matter, sexuality requires consistent discussion tailored around the young person’s developmental level. A young person’s family can be a resource that is often underutilized and underdeveloped as an avenue for intervention. In general, when trust and mutual understanding are at the forefront, young people are more likely to talk with their parents, guardians, older siblings, and other trusted adults, and in turn it builds the confidence necessary to discuss more serious subject matters. When these elements are missing, it’s easy for young adults to get involved in activities that can put their health at risk.

Why Keepin’ It Real is Important

In many cultures, sitting around the kitchen table to share meals opens up the opportunity to share what’s going on in our lives. This can lead to frank and honest discussion about a variety of topics (often referred to as keepin’ it real). When it comes to having conversations that can shape how we view our bodies and our lives, keeping it real is required, and should be tailored in such a way that it respects the sexual emergence of young people at various developmental levels. The family dynamic (birth and chosen) can provide a safe space for these conversations. Talking about sexuality can be extremely difficult, but with patience, understanding, and a willingness to learn, adults can be viewed as a beneficial and accessible resource for young people (and they can also learn from young people in the process).

Before any type of discussion on sex and sexuality comes up, it’s important to see just how…“askable” you really are. Advocates for Youth created this nifty guide called “Are You an Askable Parent?” that I tend to highlight as a resource for youth and adults alike. I tend to notice that adults oftentimes will wait until their young person brings up the subject of sex and sexuality before they decide on how best to approach the conversation. By that time, the adult is so flustered that the conversation goes nowhere, leaving both the adult and the young person with no clear sense of what just happened. I give some tips here on how to speak with a young person when the topic of sexual health comes up. If you’ve read those tips, awesome! If not, click the link (this link right here), read them, and come on back. I’ll wait…

Good!

Now that we have the tips in mind, let’s put them into action. (more…)

25 Oct, 2011

Teens, Sex Tapes & Why We’ve Got to Do Better

By |2021-08-19T17:31:11-04:00October 25th, 2011|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: |0 Comments

 

I’m not sure how to begin this post. So, I’ll start by asking some questions:

1) Why would an adult want to watch a child performing a sexual act on tape?

2) Have you ever performed a sexual act on someone? (and)

3) Do you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were not taped in the process?

4) Why do we know the name of the young girl…but not the names of the young boys who set her up?

5) She asked if being called “supa head 2” was considered a good or bad thing?

These were some of the questions I had as I read up on internet articles, Facebook, and Twitter on the incident involving a 14-year-old young girl who was secretly videotaped performing oral sex on a classmate. If you’re not sure what it is I’m referring to, click here, here, here, and also here.

At first, I didn’t want to write a post on this, but I decided to wait until now to do so. But it still doesn’t change the fact that I’m angry. I’m angry because another young woman of color somehow got into a sad predicament that could have potentially ruined her life. I’m angry because I saw grown people searching for the footage to watch (Isn’t that child pornography?) I’m angry because I’m also saw grown people (including women) calling this child a hoe, slut and every other name in the book for doing something that (I’m 99.999% sure) these adults have done before only they may have believed they weren’t being taped while doing it. I’m angry because the mainstream media is not focusing on this story more and it probably doesn’t resonate with mainstream America because this child doesn’t have blond hair and blue eyes. I’m angry because this is another example of what could potentially happen when our young girls go looking for validation in the arms of boys that don’t care about them. I’m angry at everyone who thinks this situation is funny. I’m angry at just how much this story lives up to the double standards: that boys will be boys and that girls are “just supposed to know better”. I’m also angry because I do feel sorry for these boys as well. They may not be called the hurtful names as this young woman is being called, but they too are being exploited.

What is the solution here? What can we do as adults to decrease the likelihood of incidences like this from occurring in the future? For one, we can stop sending mixed messages to young people about sex and sexuality. We can put the blame all we want on the media, rappers, models, music, videos, pop culture, social media, and magazines all we want, but young people are looking to the adults in their lives on how to behave.

My answers to the questions? :

(more…)

28 Sep, 2011

What Young Women of Color Really Want

By |2021-08-19T17:27:31-04:00September 28th, 2011|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: |0 Comments

This weekend, I attended the Congressional Black Caucus41st Annual Legislative Conference (ALC) where I spoke on a panel about African American women and reproductive healthcare and rights. I was recommended by Advocates for Youth , and invited by Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA). This panel, sponsored by PPFA, was the first of its kind at this ALC as no panel about reproductive health has been presented before. I’m excited to have been a part of it, and even more excited that it was a packed room filled with congressional members, constituents, and students who were interested in what this panel had to say.

I was charged to speak on young women and reproductive health activism. I was on a panel with esteemed individuals such as Loretta Ross (National Coordinator of SisterSong ), Dr. Vanessa Cullins (Vice President for Medical Affairs for PPFA), Rev. Alethea Smith-Withers (Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice), and Jill Morrison (National Women’s Law Center). The panel was moderated by comedienne Aisha Tyler and actress Gabrielle Union, both whom are active spokeswomen for PPFA (and Aisha is on their board of directors). It was awesome see so many African American women and men in the room who care about this issue, and even more awesome that Planned Parenthood is devoting time and attention to hearing the voices of the African American community through their African Americans for Planned Parenthood Initiative (and there’s also a Latinos for Planned Parenthood Initiative). It’s always great to see African Americans galvanizing around Planned Parenthood, especially women. The men who were in the room, for the most part, were receptive (except for these two African American men who were planted (so to speak) in the audience to bring negative attention to Planned Parenthood and the “genocide” of African American babies (…and that’s another blog post entirely).

This is a portion of what I told the audience during the panel. I didn’t come with statistics or data, but I did come with an agenda: to help more adults hear the voices of the young African American women and girls whom I have worked with and worked alongside in the past several years. Oftentimes, we adults tend to bring in our own agendas on what we feel young women want. We create these programs and initiatives that we feel “speak” to young women, but all they do is demean them, trivialize their voices, and use entirely too many slang words that are just embarrassing. While it would have been better to have a younger person on this panel to really get to the essence of what young women of color really want, I feel honored to do what I could to make the adults in the room hear them. This is what young women of color really want:

Why Am I Passionate about Reproductive Justice? (The Story of Me) (more…)

6 Sep, 2011

Coming Back to the Circle: Abstinence, Sex, & Decision-Making

By |2021-08-19T17:27:44-04:00September 6th, 2011|Categories: Miscellaneous|Tags: , |0 Comments

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post on why I chose abstinence when I was younger. It was 2005, I was 22, a senior in college, and nowhere near ready for life after graduation. At the time, I knew I wasn’t the only virgin out there and I was coming across many young people who were in the same boat as myself. I thought, however, that it was a huge deal to write openly about being abstinent as a younger person because it seemed to me at that time that virginity was something that was laughable, especially while in college. I remember getting emails from parents applauding me for writing about it, but instead of pointing out the decision making that took place in order for me to get to that point in my life, they turned the experience to focus more on religion and waiting to have sex when you’re married because one couldn’t possibly decide to wait for sex for other reasons besides marriage (which is another blog post entirely).

I’m a huge proponent for waiting until you’re ready (physically, emotionally, mentally) to have sex, and this goes to both young people and adults. It allowed me to get to know myself better and it prepared me for being able to articulate my likes and dislikes to future boyfriends. I’m also a big supporter of energy and how it’s exchanged whenever we have a connection (physical and otherwise) with someone else. To get on my soapbox for a bit, I believe that people should make the decisions for themselves that are tangible and makes the most sense for them. Though I will follow that up by also saying that people should also consider (and I’m about to use a highly-charged religious word here) being more discerning about who they decide to share intimate moments with as well as take their time when it comes to getting to know someone. For every person out there who leaves because you wanted to wait to have sex, there will another person who will appreciate you for it.

[/end soapbox talk]. Though I probably sounded more philosophical than I was at that time, I tend to smile whenever I read that original blog post because not much of my thinking has changes in the years since it was written.

Today’s post is about how we make decisions, especially when it comes to our sexual health and wellness, and how much influence a variety of factors play into those decisions.

We oftentimes walk the line between common sense and taking risks, and in reading tweets on Twitter, newsfeeds of Facebook, and in person-to-person communications with acquaintances, friends, and young people, I sometimes have to remind myself that it’s 2011. In the years since the first reported case of HIV, I would think people would have a better understanding of the virus. I’m also thinking that people would know that they have options when it comes to pregnancy (either carrying to term, terminating, or utilizing adoption). But it seems that people are still making the same unsafe decisions as our parents and possibly our grandparents were making before us. These are some of the factors I contribute to why we are still making the same decisions when it comes to our sexual health:

 

The invincibility factor– It’s like that 6 degrees of separation theory. You may know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone…and it continues. People tend to learn more and are able to make better choices when they are aware of someone who has contracted an STI or has gotten pregnant. And then again, there are people who still believe that it wouldn’t happen to them.

The media– With such a huge influence, the media can often decide for us what’s cool, how to dress, what to eat, etc. Whether lyrics to rap songs or television shows and movies that depict sex and sexuality influence us into making decisions about our health is debatable, I often wonder if practicing safer sex would be more popular if we heard more songs about wrapping it up and using birth control, or if we saw more of our favorite actors and actresses promoting condom use and partner communication in their shows and films. Let’s not forget advertising. If you have these anti-abortion billboards targeting Black women tell it, we are becoming more and more irresponsible and are having more abortions compared to any other race of women. And many of these billboards are in neighborhood where one doesn’t really watch the news. Billboards can often be a way for people in general to know what’s going on in their communities, and oftentimes we don’t question what we see.

Peer pressure– This doesn’t just affect young people. You may have girlfriends who will advise you not to have sex without a condom, but the guy may be pressuring you to do (insert XYZ task that he states will make him stay interested in you), or even your friends may pressure you to do something that you don’t want to do in order to keep someone interested.

Lack of adequate information– I went to a talk recently held by a professor at Columbia University. He’s the clinical director of a health clinic in Harlem that services young people (primarily of color). During a workshop, he stated that a young person asked him if the “earwax test” works in determining if a girl has an STI. Now, this myth has been around for years, but it speaks to some of the common misinformation that’s still out there. I give credit to the young person for even asking the professor because it shows that the young person was willing to learn more, yet there are still a lot of people today who either genuinely don’t know but what to know, or they don’t want to know and really don’t care if they have their facts straight.  From having sex with two condoms to believing that a girl is protected from pregnancy if she has sex during her menstrual cycle, there are still common misconceptions out there that need to be addressed, and if we don’t address them, we’ll have another generation of young people who will continue to try out the earwax test (and if you don’t know what the earwax test is, it’s probably a good thing that you don’t. And if you do know, I hope that you didn’t allow someone to test it out on you.)

Lack of access to quality healthcare – Given that some states are doing whatever they can to make sure that health service centers such as Planned Parenthood lose their funding, many women and girls who rely on these service centers are often faced with having to go to clinics and hospitals that are ill-equipped to provide them with the most adequate healthcare and information. And for young people on college campuses, many are dealing with inadequate campus health centers as well.

I’ve discovered more about myself in the last several years. Even though I never had any focused discussions on sex and sexuality with my parents, I managed to avoid some of the pitfalls that many women and young girls face today, and it’s one of the reasons I do what I do. Whether it’s for religious reasons or because you just feel like getting back to the essence of yourself, waiting for sexual activity can help you become better at decision making when it comes to your health. And when you decide that you’re ready, don’t forget the condoms (both male and female…but not both at the same time) and have a discussion about birth control options with a trusted healthcare provider as well. And don’t forget about partner communication before anything takes place.

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