Hi Everyone!
My name is Emma Hilleary and I am a recent graduate from the University of Georgia currently interning at Revolution Therapy and Yoga. Today I want to share with you a bit about a research project I conducted during my final year of college for my feminist research class.
I have always been interested in comprehensive sex education. In my junior year of high school we were assigned a Ted Talk style paper and presentation. I chose to write mine on the importance of comprehensive sex education, and my passion really took off. Throughout college I wrote countless papers on topics ranging from pleasure, sex and media, reproductive rights and medicine, etc. Needless to say, when it came time to pick a topic for my semester-long research project, I knew I wanted to center my project around sex and sex ed but I wasn’t quite sure how I would approach it. After sitting with the idea for a while, I decided I wanted to dig deeper in terms of investigating the actual effectiveness of the sex curricula I was so passionate about advocating for. I interviewed 9 college-age women living in the Athens area about their experience of sex ed throughout their education and their sexual experiences from when they began engaging sexually to their present sex life.
My interviews confirmed much of what I already knew about abstinence-only sex ed. At this point, it is widely accepted amongst researchers that abstinence-only education has little to no impact on the sexual activities of teenagers, and is not successful in delaying the onset of teens sexual experimentation and reducing the rate at which teens engage in sexual intercourse. My interviews with college-age women corroborated this. Shame based curricula such as abstinence-only curricula did not deter the women I spoke to from engaging sexually or increase the likelihood they would practice safe sex. Unsurprisingly, women who received abstinence only education or other shame based curriculums with limited information described their sexual experiences as shameful, disappointing, lacking in pleasure and enjoyment, and even violating. When it came to investigating the impact of comprehensive sex education though, I found that the women who had received more comprehensive sex ed described their sexual experiences similarly to those who hadn’t. They also struggled to communicate their desires, to say no, to reach climax with a partner, etc.
Every woman I spoke to had engaged in a sexual act that they did not really want to. This was common for them and accepted as somewhat normal amongst their peers. They spoke of times, either in their past or still presently for some, in which they felt so disconnected from their own sexual desire, they had no idea what or who they wanted, let alone how to ask for what they wanted, or reject what they did not. Sex seemed overwhelmingly more attached to validation, social currency, or obligation rather than desire for most of the women I talked to. For a large majority of young women, at the beginning of their sexual experimentation, sex was more about the desire to be desired, rather than the desire for someone else. My overwhelming take away from the conversations I had with the women I interviewed is that even sex ed that is comprehensive in terms of the information it provides is not enough to override the pervasive heteronormative and patriarchal ideologies and messaging about sex that dominate normative social culture, especially for women.
So, what does this mean for sex ed? It certainly doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter. If anything the results of this research should serve as a call to action to expand and deepen sex ed to better combat pre existing cultural stigma. Based on the literature I reviewed on the front end of this project and my interviews, I would argue that in order for sex ed to truly be impactful for students it must be an extended curriculum that repeats throughout a students life time, it must engage with the material in an applicable manner, and it must actively combat pre-existing, heteronormative scripts and stigmas relating to sex.
While schools are a critical site through which we must change cultural narratives about sex and arm students with information, my research illuminated to me that we cannot stop there. My true call to action for you today is towards a cultural paradigm shift that de-stigmatizes sex within our homes, our relationships, and our casual conversations. The women who participated in my study were liberal, sex positive, self identifying feminists who were well versed in their right to sexual pleasure, but still struggling to be present and find joy in their sexual experiences. And I was included in this group. Despite years of study and engagement with comprehensive sex education materials and complex theoretical conversations about the cultural stigma that surrounds sex, I still struggled to initiate sex. I struggled to shut it down when I wasn’t in the mood. I struggled to enjoy receiving sexual acts from another person. I struggled to use my voice and to release my sense of obligation.
My conversations with these women enabled me to see a glaring disconnect between cognitively understanding sex positive ideologies, and actually practicing them in the context of sex. Listening to these women speak about their sexual experiences, I realized there is an epidemic of disembodiment that is poisoning the quality of sex among young people. I realized the sex revolution I had been plotting wasn’t possible if it was confined to the classroom, if it was left to the “sex experts”. Information is power, and arming young people with accurate information about contraception, STDs, consent, etc is a hugely important first step. But what this research project truly taught me is that so many of us have forgotten our own power. Our capitalist culture conditions us to look outside of ourselves for answers and approval, but when it comes to our bodies, no one is a better expert than ourselves. This research project brought me back to my body. It deepened my appreciation for somatic practices as a way to reconnect to my own desire. It prompted me to ask more questions, not only to the people I had formerly interviewed, but to the people around me–my friends, my family, my peers. I began to see my casual conversations about sex around the coffee table as revolutionary acts to destigmatize sex and deconstruct the heteronormative narratives that were infiltrating our most intimate moments. I dared to care loudly about me and my people's pleasure, desire, and embodiment.
On a systematic level, there are so many things we don’t have individual control over. Our education system itself is flawed, which makes it infinitely more difficult to translate any curriculum effectively to students, let alone a comprehensive sex ed curriculum. As parents, peers, or community members who care about consent, communication, and pleasure in our collective sexual sphere, we must recognize the individual power we hold to care for this sphere. In a world in which sexual pleasure, especially for women, is demonized and stigmatized, prioritizing your own pleasure is an act of resistance. Discussing sex openly in safe spaces is a way to deconstruct the shame and stigma surrounding sex and shift our cultural relationship with sex without our own communities. Advocating for more comprehensive sex ed is absolutely imperative, but so is taking care of our own relationship with sex.
Join me at Revolution and Yoga on December 6th for One Night Stand to hear more about my research and how it shifted my sex activism and my conversations about sex.
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