Wanderlust

We’re back, and ready for round two

April 28, 2007 at 4:06 pm gvblog 1 comment

I’m off momentarily for points westerly, headed out of Massachusetts and into New York.  I managed to get a new back tire that’s at least slightly easier to take on and off, cleaned Rhonda up a bit, charged all my electronics, etc.  The fabulous Mick at Active Tunes moved the earth to get me my new ipod speakers before I left today – seriously, if you ever need ipod speakers, go to Active Tunes. You won’t be disappointed.

More on my visits in Boston after the jump!

 

I spent Wednesday with Megara Bell, who is the founder of Partners in Sex Education and a super amazing sex educator. I went with her to two different places where she teached sex ed – one, Dana Hall, is an expensive private all girl’s school in Wellesley, an expensive suburb of Boston. The other was Casa Isla, an intake and assesment center for boys who have gotten in trouble somehow and are in the juvenile justice system. 

It’s breathtaking sometimes how so many different worlds can exist simultaneously. The two groups of young people, as Megara put it, "are probably not even aware of the other’s existence." The boys were mostly African American and quick to meet my eyes but faster to look away.  They didn’t know what to make of me, really, little white girl riding her bike across the country. Some of them were openly skeptical, I think of the idea that such a thing could even be done. They talked boisterously and over each other, peppering Megara with questions about sex that it was clear they already knew the answers to. Casa Isla is perched on an island in the middle of the Boston Harbor (or whatever it’s called) that used to be the hospice center for tuberculosis patients.  

I was impressed by the depth of the boys’ knowledge about sex and birth control.  When Megara asked if there was a kind of birth control that could be inserted into the vagina and left there for up to a month, they not only knew that there was such a thing, they knew it was called the nuvaring.  The conversations alternated between actually talking about birth control and STD’s and bragging, boys showing off, preening for their peers.  There were so many questions I wanted to ask them – how did you end up here? Do you have any idea where you’re going? 

But the time was too short and there were too many of them, so I held my questions inside.

The girls were a different kettle of fish entirely.  They were 7th graders, and some of them were positively horrified that anyone was talking about S-E-X. The main lesson was about puberty and the changes that bodies go through, but at the beginning Megara went through anonymous questions (always a sex educators favorite trick to get conversation flowing). There were questions about the meaning of various words, which made some of the girls absolutely lose it.  It was interesting how far some of them seemed to be from thinking about sexuality – theirs or anyone elses, and the contrast between the girls at Dana Hall and the boys at Casa Isla got me thinking about the way different socio-economic classes experience sexuality.   There’s a lot of handwringing in popular culture about the every decreasing age of the onset of sexual activity, but not a lot of conversation that I’ve heard about the ways that class influences sexuality. 

This feels like one of those things that people have probably written a whole lot about – anyone has book recommendations, let me know!

I also got a chance to stop by the East Coast Good Vibes location, which was lots of fun. One of the things I’ve been thinking about is the lack of sex education classes for adults. Feminist sex stores, which train their employees to talk about pleasure and safer sex, are one of the only places that I can think of where adults can talk to someone who is knowledgeable about sexuality and get good answers.  Bri, one of the sex educators/ sales associates at Good Vibes, said that sex education in schools is often the "pre-sex" sex education, where you figure out where all the parts are but are just beginning to explore what you want and need sexually.  Good Vibes and others like it are providing "post-sex" sex ed – once you’ve figured out where you want to go, they’re the people to help you get there. 

The recent explosion in "Pleasure Parties" introduces an interesting dynamic to the mix. pleasure Parties are hosted by someone, usually a woman, and a representative from a sex toy company or store comes and talks about what the various products do. Good Vibes has its own Pleasure Parties, staffed by people like the fabulous Becca Brewer, but there are tons of people out there doing parties on their own, and no certification or training process is required to call yourself a "pleasure party consultant" or whatever you’d want to call yourself. Several people I’ve talked to have said that the people who are giving the parties are often not trained to talk about sexuality, safer sex, etc, and that they end up giving out misinformation.  I have no idea whether or not this is true, but if it is it seems like a shame.  Wouldn’t it be great if along with info about toys, the women at the party also got to talk about communication and sexuality? 

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