Snark in the name of sex education

I wrote a thing for the Girl Museum blog a few weeks ago, for our 52 Objects exhibition (which is really cool in it's own right, and you should go look at it. That's why I linked it). I wanted to write on it when I signed up to do it, and then I didn't because I realized I'd have to actually, you know, do it, and then I had to because I said I would and the deadline was getting close.

And then I got angry. Which might sound weird, but I have a really big issue with a lot of sex education programs out there, because they suck. Some are ok–my sex ed was ok–not amazing, but at least the 4-J school district actually taught sex ed, and I got varying levels of it in the 5th, 8th, 9th, and 10th grades. Admittedly, the 10th grade version sucked because the teacher was bad at all things, and the 9th grade version was scary because Coach Bass was scary. In a good way, but still. 5th grade was biological, and divided by gender, which was good, and 8th grade focused a bit more on issues of "don't get pregnant, here's how not to (rather lacking in practical details, but at least we got told about things like condoms)" and that sort of thing.

What I don't remember any of them looking at, though, was issues of consent. That you can say no, and if you do say no, anything after that point is rape. Doesn't matter the circumstances, it's rape. Doesn't matter if you said yes earlier, if you're saying no now, it's rape. Consent is, in my mind, the single biggest thing that's not being taught, let alone being clearly taught. It's horrible, and we can see the outcomes reverberating throughout Hollywood right now, let alone in "joking" phrases like "No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal."

So yes, the notion of consent is a HUGE deal to me, and I hate it when people muddy the waters with phrases like "date rape" (sorry Mom, but I disagree with you completely). It's not different, it's not less rapey. I can understand why some people would like it to be different–it can change one's mentality to being less of a victim, but I think it muddies the waters in ways that allow rapists to think it's ok. It's not. Related, here's a funny, but irritating they had to make it at all, vido on consent.

All that to say that you should go read my thing over at Girl Museum. The post is here, and I got snarky because we were discussing changing some objects, and mine was possibly on the chopping block, especially since I didn't really want to write it (but we didn't know what would be coming in, so we wanted a backup we could run with). I strongly encourage watching, at least in relation to this post over here, the John Oliver video over there. Fluffy the Bunny is funny, and the actual object (the video "Molly Grows Up") is really interesting from a historical/sociological perspective.

Right, back to #NanNoWriMo.