Saving & Changing Lives: Scarleteen’s Activism

Posted on November 15, 2010 in activism | 1 Comment

So this month, Scarleteen has had a Fund Raiser and Blog Carnival coordinated by AAG going ’round the sex blogs. Dozens of writers and bloggers and sex-positive forward thinking folks took part, just take a look at the list here

You probably already know about Scarleteen. I certainly mention that site frequently here. Here’s the description:

Scarleteen has been the premier online sexuality resource for young people worldwide since 1998, and has the longest tenure of any sex education resource for young people online. We have consistently provided free, inclusive, comprehensive and positive sex education, information and one-on-one support to millions, and have never shied away from discussing sexuality as more than merely posing potential risks, but as posing potential benefits, something rarely seen in young adult sex education. We built the online model for teen and young adult sex education and have never stopped working hard to sustain, refine and expand it.

Sometimes I feel like I’m preaching to the choir when I say that teen sex education is important, and that beyond that reliable information about sex available for anyone and everyone on the internet is also important. I go there frequently when I need to look up the details of STIs, for example. It’s a great resource for all kinds of things, and the testimonials from teens and folks who have been users and contributors to the site for years are very moving. They have a whole community, people talking to each other and taking care of each other and sending love and information to each other honestly and openly. That kind of interaction and information is invaluable.

In 2009 and 2010, Scarleteen has had around 1 million overall hits to the site each day from an average of 25,000 unique users daily. And you know, I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to say that sites like this, with frank and real and honest and non-judgmental resources about sexuality, kink, sexual orientation, gender identity, and relationships, can and have had real impact on the complicated and sometimes life-threatening teenage years of folks with marginalized genders and sexualities. Sex education saves lives, at best, and absolutely changes lives.

I’m closing out the blog carnival today, along with pieces by Violet Blue on Tiny Nibbles and Heather Corinna on Scarleteen, with the end of the call for financial support for Scarleteen.

Scarleteen is very undersupported financially. We always need more financial support and I would very much appreciate having yours. I think we do a fantastic, important job, think we have for many years, and I intend to do all I can for us to keep doing that job for many more to come so we can remain a place young people know they can come back to, and don’t have to worry about passing in the night when a media or cultural tide shifts. I think Scarleteen and all that happens at Scarleteen is very worthy of being supported and sustained. To make that happen, we need more than just my own stubborn and dogged commitment and that of our volunteers: it also takes some dollars. (Quoted from Heather’s post on Scarleteen.)

Thanks to some generous donors, up to $2,000 in donations will now be matched for donations made from today until Saturday the 20th. If you’ve got an extra few bucks, now’s the time to toss ‘em toward an organization that does some important work.

1 Comment | Category: activism | Tags: , , , , , ,

The Scarleteen 2011 Fund Raiser and Blog Carnival

Posted on October 15, 2010 in miscellany | 2 Comments

I’m taking part in the Scarleteen 2011 Fund Raiser and Blog Carnival! Thanks to Scarleteen and AAG for organizing this, it’s a great idea.

My day is November 15th, the last day of the carnival. They are expecting multiple authors every day, so you can still sign up and be part of the carnival. Tess kicked off the carnival today with a piece about talking to her daughter about sex.

I have long followed Heather Corinna’s work, and Scarleteen has been an invaluable resource to me for more than ten years now. I love that site and I want to support it in many ways. Wish I could toss ‘em hundreds of dollars, but that’s just not possible for me right now. Don’t know Scarleteen yet? Time to get to know ‘em.

Scarleteen has been the premier online sexuality resource for young people worldwide since 1998, and has the longest tenure of any sex education resource for young people online. We have consistently provided free, inclusive, comprehensive and positive sex education, information and one-on-one support to millions, and have never shied away from discussing sexuality as more than merely posing potential risks, but as posing potential benefits, something rarely seen in young adult sex education. We built the online model for teen and young adult sex education and have never stopped working hard to sustain, refine and expand it.

Hope you’ll participate in some way, be it writing about Scarleteen, sex education, or sending some money over their way. Watch for my post about it coming in November.

2 Comments | Category: miscellany | Tags: , , , , , ,

Review: Laid: Young People’s Experiences with Sex in an Easy-Access Culture (Seal Press)

Posted on July 9, 2010 in swag | No Comments

Laid: Young People’s Experiences with Sex in an Easy-Access Culture Edited by Shannon T. Boodram. Seal Press, 2009

Perhaps I had unrealistic high expectations for this book. “The basement smelled like sex,” the book starts. “That thick, musty scent that sits in the air and clings to everything it touches. I inhaled deep and hard, thinking about the heated moments that had just passed. The moments when I was too busy creating the odor to even notice its sticky presence.” Maybe I thought it’d be a bit more upbeat, positive. I have a skewed perspective of sex education and what’s going on with sexually active youth, after all, consuming places like Scarleteen.com and attending queer and kinky events occasionally open to young people.

Laid is separated into five different chapters, each focusing on a different aspect of sex: hookups, positive experiences, physical consequences, date rape, and abstinence. I expected “consequences” and “date rape” to be harder chapters to read, but in truth they were all hard. I kept cringing from the negative, stereotypical information being given out at every turn. But because these stories are full of people’s real experiences and opinions, they can’t exactly be “wrong;” but I cannot recommend this book as any representation of sexual education, as it sells itself as being. The honest, real experiences expressed are valuable to read, but I clearly do not agree with these contributor’s value systems, and many of them I would disagree as plain old bad information.

As I got further into the book, I even doubted the values and knowledge of the editor, as each chapter wraps up with a series of questions about that chapter’s content from the contributors. Questions from Boodram such as “What does lesbian sex include, since it’s not possible to have traditional vaginal/penile intercourse?” (p55), asking a bisexual woman, “Do you have a preference?” (p110), and asking a woman who authored a piece on her abortion, “Why did you decide to abort your child?” (p178) all got me hot under the collar, for both the content and the phrasing.

Boodram admits that a book agent wrote to her, “This book is too negative. Despite having some good information I think the chapter on rape really drags things down” (p185). First, including a quote from an agent’s rejection letter in your book seems like a bad idea. Second, the book is too negative: but not just because of the rape chapter. The “physical consequences” chapter reads like a warning: Don’t Have Sex Or This Will Happen To You. And while it’s true that there are real consequences to sex, and that young people need to be educated about safety and caution, sex is not all bad! Despite the “positive experiences” chapter, the prevalence of scary, negative, and frightening stories was so pervasive that I can’t help but think I would be all the more inclined to agree with Boodram’s encouragement of abstinence after reading through these stories. Boodram used to run the site SaveYourCherry.com, which seems to be down now, and knowing that bit of information makes it even easier to see Laid as an advertisement for her philosophies about waiting to have sex because the consequences are too risky. Save it for the one you love! every chapter seems to shout. Or you’ll end up like me. It seems like a cheap way to use the honest, rare stories that these teens and young adults shared about their sex lives.

Boodram did include some men’s voices and perspectives in this collection of stories, but I found myself disappointed in that, too. In the introduction to the date rape chapter, Boodram admits, “My biggest regret about this chapter is that it does not include the voice of a male who experienced rape or sexual abuse. Twice I was contacted by different men … both expressed that they were interested in sharing their stories, and neither ended up submitting. … I had to give up” (p186). There must be more than two young men out there who have experienced sexual assault and who may be willing to share their stories around it. Rape is more complicated than women as survivors and men as perpetrators, and while that is the most common scenario, I wish she’d looked a little harder to include multiple perspectives.

But that’s the problem with a “sexual education” book based on real experiences: it is much harder to include content to create a full, varied, and wide representation of experience, since the editor may be limited to the contributions she received. And it’s difficult, as a critic, to disagree with someone’s personal experience.

Contributor Anthony writes in his story, “Teenage Pregnancy,” that he “never saw abortion as an option. I also know how selfish it may seem because I wasn’t the one carrying the child, but I don’t regret how firm a stance I took” (p180). This is a tough position on which to take a stance, controversial even, and while perhaps it makes sense to include multiple perspectives on the same situation, there was no corollary young woman with a feminist stance, saying she has the right to choose over her own body and that her boyfriend (or one night stand or hookup) was supportive, but understood that it was more her choice than his. In fact, there was kind of the opposite: another abortion story by Lorie who writes, “I did not include my partner in my decision. This I regret. I truly felt that the child was as much mine as it was his: thus, the decision should have been as much his as it was mine” (p178). I’ll skip over the part where she calls a fetus a “child,” and give her the benefit of the doubt that he was a great guy who would have listened and negotiated with her about what to do after they both got into this situation together. Hopefully, he would not have taken such a firm stance as Anthony, described above, forcing upon Lorie that abortion was not an option for her.

Perhaps abortion decisions are never so simple. Perhaps if Lorie had had a partner she could trust and confide in, she would have felt that pregnancy and birth was an option. Perhaps she wouldn’t say things like, “I get sad when I see a little girl who looks like me, or when I see pictures of a fetus. … I almost feel as though I’m not worthy to have another child because I let one go” (p179). But what about the flip side of that experience? What about when women have abortions and they feel okay about it, even good about their decision? What about the women who do not feel guilt? What about the right to exercise one’s choice? Those women are out there, that perspective on abortion is out there, but the sad regretful stories are far, far more prevalent in cultural narratives.

These experiences are clearly important, valid stories, real scenarios that these real people have gone through, and their real thoughts and feelings about them. I wouldn’t tell Lorie that her response to her abortion is “wrong” any more than I can tell someone else that theirs is “right”—I can only say that I know there are other responses out there, too, and when a book like this is touting itself off as an educational resource, I am not impressed.

There was one part I quite enjoyed: at the very end, almost as an afterthought with no bolding or italics, Boodram includes Ten Things I Wish I’d Known Earlier, and those points were right on. Those ideas, concepts, and general content I could get behind. “Sex is not just put it in, take it out. … Everyone thinks they’re good at sex without even really knowing anything about it. … Demand the truth about sex from your teachers and make sure they take adequate time to talk about myths verses reality. … Be confident and deliberate, especially when it comes to your personal life” (p278-279). She even includes Things the Contributors Want You To Know, a similar list of inspiring statements and personal revelations. Now this, this is useful. What would a book based on those ideas look like?

If it were simply a collection of essays on young people’s experiences with sex, it would have been an interesting essay collection. If it had been only a sexual education book written by Boodram, it may have stood up a bit stronger, and not had to answer to the long, real-life scenarios by her contributors. Regardless, there are better essay collections and much better sexual education books available; skip this one.

Thanks to Seal Press who sent me this book for review. Order it from them or from your local, independent, queer, feminist bookstore, or, if you must, from Amazon.

No Comments | Category: swag | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Scarleteen: Help Lift Sex Ed to a Higher Plane

Posted on November 17, 2009 in activism | 2 Comments

stfund09_160I’ve written about the sex education network Scarleteen before, calling for support and donations to help keep this invaluable resource going strong.

I’ve been following Scarleteen and the work of its Executive Director, Heather Corinna, since probably around 1997 or ’98, and have been enamored especially of her photography and her work on her site femmerotic.com. Seems she’s not doing quite as much photography these days as she used to, though perhaps that’s partially because she’s working full-time AND running Scarleteen. (Yeah, sounds like something I would do, I know.)

Scarleteen’s had a big year – it’s now part of The Center for Sex and Culture out of San Francisco. But it still needs support, by which I mean DONATIONS.

littlesxCorinna also released her book S.E.X. in 2007 – “the in-depth and inclusive sexuality guide! Covering everything from STIs to sexual orientation, body image to birth control, masturbation to misogyny, the anatomy of the clitoris to considering cohabitation, and written for you whether you’re male, female or genderqueer; straight, gay or somewhere in between, this is THE everything-you-need, comprehensive, progressive sexuality handbook to get you through high school, college and the rest of your life.” Donate more than $75 and get a copy of the book.

Please consider passing on $5, $10, $100, $500 to this fantastic resource. You can also follow Scarleteen’s blog to keep up with some of the discussion.

More information about the site and its activism follows.

You probably know Scarleteen has been the premier online sexuality resource for young people worldwide since 1998. We have consistently provided free inclusive, comprehensive and positive sex education, information and support to millions for longer than anyone else online. We built the online model for teen and young adult sex education and have remained online for nearly eleven years to sustain, refine and expand it.

What you might not know is that Scarleteen is the highest ranked online young adult sexuality resource but also the least funded and that the youth who need us most are also the least able to donate. You might not know that we have done all we have with a budget lower than the median annual household income in the U.S. You might not know we have provided the services we have to millions without any federal, state or local funding and that we are fully independent media which depends on public support to survive and grow.

You also might not know Scarleteen is primarily funded by people who care deeply about teens having this kind of vital and valuable service; individuals like you who want better for young people than what they get in schools, on the street or from initiatives whose aim is to intentionally use fearmongering, bias and misinformation about sexuality to try to scare or intimidate young people into serving their own personal, political or religious agendas.

To try and reach our goal, we’re asking supporters to consider a donation of $100 or greater. If that isn’t possible for you, whatever you give will still help and will still be strongly appreciated. To donate now (or to view or link to the rest of this email online), click here. If you’d first like more information on why we’re setting the goal we are, what Scarleteen has done in the last year and during the whole of our tenure, our plans for 2010, and what the scoop is with our budget and expenses, keep reading.

Read more

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Important Calls for Support: Home Alive & Scarleteen

Posted on February 18, 2009 in activism | 4 Comments

Two great organizations are in need of support.

I know there are dozens – hundreds – more organizations that also need support, but these two in particular are very dear and important to my heart, they’re community organizations that have provided so much help and support and information to underserved, underrepresented groups.

SAVE HOME ALIVE is a grassroots effort to save a grassroots organization, Home Alive, out of Seattle. They offer self-defense classes to anyone, regardless of their ability to pay, in response to issues of violence and safety in communities. They are particularly aware of those marginalized groups who tend to be more often the victims of street violence, and actively work to call attention to homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism, racism, sexism, ableism, and classism. I’d love to see Home Alive classes in cities all over the country. Home Alive needs $25,000 to keep its doors open.

Scarleteen, which I’ve linked to here often and hopefully you already know about, is a sex education and resource center aimed at teens (though I go there – and refer friends there – all the time there to find information on STIs and sexual health). They have some exciting news – they’re now part of the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco! And rom February 14th through March 15th, one of their regular donors has agreed match the donations they receive up to $350 per donor, and/or up to $3,000 total. Just ten bucks helps, people! Do what you can, please.

If you don’t have money, you can help in other ways: steal these banners and reprint them on your own websites. Write a post about it. Send an email to all your friends (especially those with money). I’m taking out a blogads ad, and if you’ve got blogads on your site and want to donate to the cause by sending me your free ad code, I’d love to put the banner on your site.

More information on both of these amazing organizations follows.

Home Alive’s Mission:

Home Alive considers all forms of oppression as acts of violence against individuals.Through our self-defense classes, we call attention to homophobia, transphobia, heterosexism, racism, sexism, ableism, and classism. We challenge participants to defend themselves and our communities from these forms of institutional oppression.

By standing up against these types of violence-both individually and collectively we an create social change. Home Alive believes that safety is a basic human right. Every member of our community has the right to a life free from violence and hate. We know that, working together, we can create safe families, safe relationships and safe communities.

About Save Home Alive:

Hi there. My name is Jen and I’ve lived in Seattle since 2000. A few weeks ago I found my way to a class at Home Alive and honestly, it changed my life. Read my story here. When I heard this organization was closing their doors I decided to do whatever I could to help. This is my grassroots effort to help save an amazing grassroots org.

“You are worth defending. I am worth defending. In my heels and in my running shoes, in my skirt and cleavage and in my drag king drag. We are all always worth defending.” (Home Alive)

Home alive is worth defending! This is a call for help.

Home Alive, the self-defense organization started by friends outraged at the rape and murder of Mia Zapata, has been deeply rooted in the Seattle community for the last 16 years. They offer sliding scale self defense and boundary setting classes to anyone that wants to learn, regardless of whether or not they can pay. Because of this the organization is dependent on community donations. Read more about the organization here.

Right now, Home Alive is 25k in debt and being forced to close their doors. Realistically they need more than that to recover and rebuild but this website’s goal is to get them back to zero, at least.

Sooooooooo, I’m calling on 25 thousand people to give $1 dollar or for 5,000 folks to give $5 or for 2,083.333 folks to give $12 or for 862 people to give $29… or any creative combination of this really. 

 C’mon people. Don’t you want to help Save Home Alive?  

 

   Double Dollar Valentines for Scarleteen!

From February 14th through March 15th, one of our regular donors has agreed match the donations we receive up to $350 per donor, and/or up to $3,000 total.

This is a great opportunity to amplify your support! You can play a part in sustaining Scarleteen and all of the young adults who need and are helped with our unique brand of inclusive, progressive, holistic and accurate sexuality education. As we finish one decade of delivering the goods we so strongly feel have nurtured and continue to nurture the development of a healthy, happy sexuality for young people, I’m asking for your help as we enter another.

Scarleteen is now affiliated with the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco. The CSC was founded and is directed by Dr. Carol Queen and Dr. Robert Lawrence. Their mission is to provide judgment-free education, cultural events, a library/media archive, and other resources to audiences across the sexual and gender spectrum; and to research and disseminate factual information, framing and informing issues of public policy and public health. We’re thrilled to be the first young adult sex education project they have worked with and are very glad for this partnership. Robert and Carol, as well as other members of the CSC, have been incredibly supportive of Scarleteen and sex education as a whole over the years.

If you haven’t kept up, here are a few pieces we added to the site in 2008 and 2009 to give you an idea of what we’ve been up to:

- Genderpalooza! A Sex & Gender Primer
- How You Guys — that’s right, you GUYS — Can Prevent Rape
- Birth Control Bingo
- Shown Actual Size: A Penis Shape & Size Lowdown
- Give’em Some Lip: Labia That Clearly Ain’t Minor
- Blinders Off: Getting a Good Look at Abuse and Assault
- I, Being Born Woman and Suppressed
- Be a Blabbermouth! The Whys, Whats and Hows of Talking About Sex With a Partner
- Let’s Get Metaphysical: The Etiquette of Entry

We have also had a handful of great first-person pieces added from users or volunteers in our In Your Own Words section. Our voting guide last year helped many users of voting age to find clear, balanced information about the Presidential candidates to best inform (and motivate!) their vote. Our archive of direct, in-depth advice to users who write in with questions is extensive. Lastly, our message boards, which we rolled out in the year 2000, continue to be busy, actively moderated and a place of bustling, supportive conversation (as well as a way to help users manage crises quickly) at a level many teens do not have other opportunities to engage in when it comes to such loaded subjects.

- We rank in the upper 25,000 of all sites online internationally
- We consistently rank in the top 11,000 – 12,000 of all sites in the United States
- 65 million page loads have occurred at the site from users since 2006
- We now have over 40,000 active message board users

Support Scarleteen now! Visit www.scarleteen.com or take a look at more information (and the rest of this letter that I’ve reprinted excerpts from here) at Double Dollar Valentines for Scarleteen.

4 Comments | Category: activism | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,