Teaching Good Sex (Finally)

Finally for two reasons - I'm slow on reading this and it's about freakin' time someone took the reigns on this.


I've been doing a semester long project advocating for what Al Vernacchio is already doing. For a summary, check out this other cool blog.

I have two favorite parts about Vernacchio's lessons:

1. He reinforces parity in sexual decision making and points out all of the nuances of the speech many people use to describe sex - for instance that the baseball analogies of first base, second base, third base and homerun imply a winner and a loser, an aggressor and a defender. He entirely reframes the way young people approach sex from the very beginning, which we've desperately needed, and he does it in a way that is relevant to pretty much everyone, using comparisons between sexual decision making and pizza topping decision making.

2. He cares about teaching young people about their bodies. Young people curious about sex or newly participating in sex are especially anxious about asking questions of their friends about their experiences or frightened by things they are feeling for the first time. “If kids are starting to use their bodies sexually, they should know about their potentialities,” Vernacchio told [Abraham] later. “It’s O.K. that boys ejaculate, that’s totally normalized” — wet dreams have been standard fare for middle-school health class for decades — “but girls, gross! Girls will think they’re peeing themselves, and it’s really shameful.”

Fist pump for Al Vernacchio, and Jane for finding the blog.