Sex Education - A Letter To The British Government

[windswepteuphony]

Every single one of these points were covered in my Sexuality course in college -- in my PAID FOR college education, at twenty-two years old. This, of course, is years after I became sexually active and had emotional as well as physical romantic relationships. I found it absurd that I was only then receiving that information while my younger sisters were going through public school without much more than "A + B = sex. There are STDs. They are bad. Abstinence is the one true way to remain safe."

[DiiKai]

Abso-fucking-lutely! I have high hopes for this channel. Subscribed :)

[ThosePeskyDames]

@DiiKai Hurray, thank you! ~ Jenn

[LiberalElitistMedia]

What a pretty and SMART Ginger girl :)

[somekindofbecca]

@cannedkitty I'm sorry we have made you feel this way. I hope you can believe me when I say that this is an issue we are aware of, and one we raised when first starting out. The other Dames are those who were interested and willing to join me in starting a channel, out of a larger group of friends, who are admittedly also predominately white. We did not recruit for collaborators, but rather are close friends IRL.

This is however not an excuse, and we certainly welcome videos from...(cont)

[somekindofbecca]

@cannedkitty (cont)...women of colour to post as guest videos on the weekend, as well as video responses to be added to our weekly themed playlists and posted up on our Facebook & Twitter. This is part of the reason we are so keen to take weekend guest videos, as we are aware that we are only five women who are not able to represent the many different experiences of all women.

We honestly do care about your opinion, I apologise that you have been made to feel that we do not.

[cannedkitty]

@somekindofbecca i was bein an asshole. just ignore/delete my comments when im bein an asshole.

[ThosePeskyDames]

@cannedkitty I would just like to reaffirm everything @somekindofbecca has said. I am very sorry we've made you feel we do not care about WOC, that was definitely not our intention and we really do care about your/other women's opinions. ~ Jenn

[ptracerfastlane]

I have no idea how I ended up here, but I may as well comment seeing as I've watched the video. Our secondary school forgot to teach Sex Ed. to my half of the year, so the only knowledge I had was a single lesson in primary school aged 11. I expect most of us only found out about the mechanics, processes, anatomy etc. through exploration and the internet. Numerous girls I went to school with have had kids since and are now single parents, probably as a result of lack of education...

[ThosePeskyDames]

@ptracerfastlane It's incredibly frustrating how crap schools are at teaching it. I'm sorry your school was so awful about it, and sadly I'm sure you're not the only one with bad experiences of sex ed. ~ Jenn

[KadieAnneEvans]

(Part 2) Not only that but it also leaves people unprepared. The whole point of school, education, is to prepare young people for adult life, by not having standardised, comprehensive sex education in schools the British government does it's young people a massive disservice.

[ThosePeskyDames]

@KadieAnneEvans I agree entirely with you. They're failing us, no two ways about it. ~ Jenn

[KadieAnneEvans]

Preach! Teaching that sex or not sex is okay, that there are different ways to have sex, that different people are going to enjoy different things and this, so long as it's consensual, is okay is important. Sex education, at least that which I experienced, is so hetronormative and it erasures the experiences of so many. (Part 1)

[cannedkitty]

Good luck getting any of this stuff taught in America :[

[ThosePeskyDames]

@cannedkitty It makes me so mad that they're still on this abstinence kick even though it's been proven time and time again that it doesn't WORK! ~ Jenn

[somekindofbecca]

Also dental dams aren't just for the gays either. Basically, if you're performing oral sex on a woman or oral to anal sex on anyone (rimming) and you want to stay safe you should be using a dental dam. STIs and STDs don't care about your gender or sexual orientation.

[somekindofbecca]

I love this video, and I especially love how much love and hugs and kisses you sent to the British Government at the end. I would not send the current Government that much love or hugs or kisses, or in fact any. Although I could perhaps be persuaded to at least tip my hat to them if they paid any attention to this video instead of all that abstinence bollocks.

[ptracerfastlane]

@somekindofbecca Could teaching too much encourage higher levels of exploration and devalue sex? Is that really better than teaching abstinence?

[somekindofbecca]

@ptracerfastlane Answers in order of your questions: No and Yes.

Most teens already know about oral, manual and anal sex, as well as heterosexual penetration that is, at best, all that gets covered by current Sex Ed classes. You're not teaching them anything they won't hear about through friends, elder siblings, TV or the Internet. What you are teaching them is the risks involved with these acts and how to stay safe, which is something they are very unlikely to learn elsewhere.

[ThosePeskyDames]

@ptracerfastlane I don't think letting kids know that it's okay to explore sex (as long as they do it in a safe and consensual way) is a bad thing at all, and I don't think it 'devalues' sex in any way. Much better than giving them no helpful information at all and just shouting 'NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE.' ~ Jenn

[cannedkitty]

@ThosePeskyDames I think the issue is how you define consensual, that many teens might not know if what they're doing is right or potentially problematic. I would err on the side of teens being a lot smarter than we give them credit for, I'm just uncomfortable with the mixing of 'sex positivity' with 'sex education'...saying its okay to explore and not to explore sex seems convoluted. i would omit the former as teens are horny and curious anyway. just make the tools available