Taking Sex Ed to School

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Not surprisingly, students’ efforts to bring about changes ebb and flow as they graduate. So a number of groups are launching collaborative online initiatives that combine youth energy and perspectives with adult abilities to provide access to health professionals and trained counselors.

These websites provide medically accurate information that speaks to teens’ specific needs. For instance, MySistahs.org connects young women of color, who face disproportionately high rates of pregnancy and of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, with trained peers.

Terica Gant, for instance, sets aside about five hours every week from her busy schedule to answer e-mail from young women across the country. Between getting a master’s degree in social work from Louisiana State University, working in a group home for teenage girls, and helping out with an after-school program, she fields queries on topics ranging from emergency contraception to how soon one can have sex after an abortion to how to deal with an abusive partner.

She says the online approach boasts a critical advantage over classroom-based education: No question is too outrageous, and privacy is guaranteed. “Especially if you’re coming from a small town, you might not feel comfortable talking to your parents or your doctor,” the 22-year-old Gant says. “So the Internet is a great way to get the answers you desperately need, but not be judged, or worry that someone is going to tell on you.”

Other popular sites include Planned Parenthood’s Teenwire.com, a bilingual site answering inquiries like “What is morning wood?” and Scarleteen.com, an independent site with a lively sense of humor and a dynamite graphic on the “Attack of the 50-foot Vulva!”

Though much of the conversation about sex and the Internet focuses on pedophiles and pornography, sex-ed advocates stress the web’s positive potential. “The web is buyer beware, and young people have to be careful,” says James Wagoner, head of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Advocates for Youth. “But youth are fighting for respect and for their rights, and we’re just in the early stages of seeing how the web makes that possible.”

Barbara Miner, a columnist for Rethinking Schools, writes frequently on social issues. Adapted and excerpted from ColorLines(May-June 2008), the national newsmagazine on race and politics, and winner of the 2007 Utne Independent Press Award for general excellence; www.colorlines.com.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print