 Welcome to Quacksack. I'm Crystal. It's Happy Tuesday. Let's talk about sex. No, it's not the kind of sex you want to talk about. Today, we're going to talk about healthy body positive beautiful sex and two kids. Now, you've all been kids before and parents, if you have young kids, join us our conversation, not just young kids, old kids, because you know, we need to from time to time reassess our views, our values, our concept of sexuality. And I've got some two great guests here who have the best healthy positive attitude about this. Let's welcome them now. They are representatives of OWL. What is OWL? It is our whole lives. I'm going to have them introduce what this is all about. Next to me, I've got Gabe, Gabe Tianganko. Welcome. Good morning. Good morning. And Reverend Kyle. Kyle, love it. Welcome. So, will you please educate our audience on what OWL means, first of all, before we kick into the topic? Well, let me begin with OWL. We have our mascot here this morning. And OWL actually stands for our whole lives. And our whole lives expresses our belief that sexual education is a lifelong process of acquiring information and developing attitudes and values. So, like an 80-year-old man can still reassess what his concept of sexuality is. Exactly. And we actually have the program for that age group as well. Oh, good. That's great. Yes, yes. And OWL is a positive, comprehensive, age-appropriate program that promotes sexual information. Okay. And this is catered to schools. Do you have this program that you go into schools to give workshops? So, we have been in schools. There are agencies around the nation that have used this curriculum, even though it comes from two religious organizations originally. It's completely secular. There's no religious content. But it comes from the faith position that we are beautiful, that sexuality is healthy, and people should be whole. So, Planned Parenthood has used it, and schools have used it, and lots of churches have used it. Well, can I just take on to your tag on to that religious aspect? I know you say it's non-denominational, but religion and sexuality have a huge influence and, you know, the direction of how people are educated about sexuality. So, how is it not related? And depending on, let's say you go to a Catholic school and how they introduce sexuality as opposed to Jewish school or what, it does affect how they see it, no? So the underlying values, yes, are affected by the faith stance that creation is beautiful and that there is divinity present in the universe. But the curriculum itself doesn't say, and God says do this, or and... It's total secular. It's secular in that regard, but it comes from a values undergirding that is a very positive one. So that's the distinction. There is actually a component, a separate curriculum piece that you can use sort of to open the class and close the class with a religious ceremonial light a candle and invoke the presence of the divine. But it doesn't have specific dogmatic approaches. It really is about wholeness for the human being. But are there some areas that kind of step on certain religions toes, for example, LGBT issues that certain religions don't really support? I mean, how does that work into the program? So one of the, there are five circles of topics within OWL. Yeah, I'm going to read them because I don't have them memorized. Don't. Shame on you. It's on my wall, but that's where I can refer to it. Yeah. So sensuality, intimacy, sexual identity, sexual health and reproduction and sexualization. So it goes to both the sort of the positive and negative aspects of the wholeness. And it does touch on LGBTQ issues and the various identities that people have. One of the ways that the earliest curriculum talks about sexuality is to talk about different families. There are different families. And we know here that there are lots of different families, right? Yeah, it's blended all the way. So that's one way of talking about, and there are also families that have two fathers. There are families that have, you know, single parents, et cetera. Ohana. It's great there in Hawaii. Yeah. So we do cover diversities, right? In terms of stepping on religions toes, there are many different voices within each religion about any kind of sexuality topic. Maybe some of them are more quiet than others, but they're there. So no one has a claim on speaking for the divine in terms of LGBT, or in terms of sexuality, or one's expression in the world, gender expression in the world. Yeah. So it would be stepping on toes only in the sense that, yes, we talk about everything that needs to be talked about. Good. I like that. Now, but when we're now that we're still on the LGBT issue, you know, that's a big current topic in world news as well as in education, I think. And how has that changed sex ed within the younger classes? How do you even approach that? Or is that something that you have to modify over the years because of the current changes and attitudes? I think we're teaching them from a very good goal, the reality that in their life today, they'll have to come across the LGBT community. So we don't brush that off to the side. We're teaching that that do exist. And on that subject, we teach them respect, respect for themselves, respect for others and loving your neighbor like you would yourself. You know, kids come up with a darnest question. Have you had anything in that area that's been sensitive and you're like, oh, how do I answer that? You know, it's a, the class starts at the kindergarten. Okay. So at that level, they're not too concerned about it, but because it's taught in the lessons, you start to educate them. And as they get older, the questions come out in their elementary years, they have a few questions. And as they get older, the questions sort of broadens on the LGBT community. Okay. Okay. Yeah, one of the things about the curriculum is that are in terms of the teaching, the facilitating of the classes is that we're taught to just receive all the questions without reacting with startle or derision or anything so that we don't prejudice young people against asking questions. Right. That questions are really valuable and important. So we have to maintain our facial expression and maintain ourselves so that we don't giggling or no giggling or no pooing something. So we do get questions that are sort of throw one out. Okay. So one of the questions we've had is, so what is your favorite sexual position? Wait, what age group? Are we talking about that junior high junior high junior high is the most robust curriculum of the whole series in part because that's when you really need sort of all the somebody asks you that. Yeah. Yeah. What your favorite position? Yeah. And how did you answer? There are lots and lots of positions that people engage in when they are being sexually intimate. And my favorite position may not be somebody else's. But what you need to do is you need to explore what is an appropriate boundary for yourself, what you do and do not want to do with your body and what pleases your body and what doesn't please your body and be really clear about what you. Okay, pause. Okay, pause. Now, scenario, that situation, what if that person goes home and says, Mom, the teacher today, the professor said that I'm supposed to explore the positions that I like. Well, what happened to our program, the parents are part of the class also. So the parents attend the class, the children's in one room, the parents in the room. We are working on the same material. Yes, we are working on the same scenario and exercises. So by the time the children and the parents leave the class, there's a lot of conversation in the car. And so you're up and up with the and so and it becomes a more comfortable conversation with the parents. Yeah, we're working on the same issues. Yeah. And as far as questions, excuse me, a lot of the children are not front with their questions. So we have a question box. Of course, at the end of the day, the questions you're not able to share, put it in the box, and it's discussed the next day anonymously. Good. And so at least the question is answered. Okay, well, that's a pretty bold one to be not. Yes, they do. Yeah, they do. And junior high. Right. Yeah, absolutely. When we get comfortable across the weeks of the class. And because of the classes designed where it's a comfortable atmosphere. So you're all like, it's a non judgmental atmosphere. So by that age group, they're totally comfortable. If you started at the kindergarten and the fourth grade level, by that age group, they're open with questions. So it's never too young for a sex ed. Correct. Well, people start learning about their bodies from infancy, right? People explore their own bodies. And then they get messages from their family, their parent's society about that exploration and whether their bodies are good or bad, or whether the things they do and what they do. And there's different organs. I remember when my younger son was like three, and he said something like, Oh, yeah, I need to do something with my vagina because he heard his older sister say that. So they don't really know the differences. And it's really quite charming. And our program is age appropriate. So the kindergarten is don't get the same material as the junior high. And in the kindergarten, they're learning more about themselves, their body and verbiage, correct verbiage, like no touch respect. Yeah, well, if you a lot of scenarios, whether the child maybe culturally, they had the body parts are like their language. Right. And a lot of parents that they teach their children. What is it? Colloquialism. Slang names for body. Okay, yeah. So if you have this kindergarten, the playground, yeah, how do you say and she heard her vagina right, and she comes to the class and the teacher is somebody from Colorado. And she said my punani Jimmy hit my punani the Colorado ago. You know, so communication is really important. So at that young age, they're learning the correct verbiage. And in the very beginning, it's hard for them to say vagina. Yeah. But by the end of the class session, the kindergarten are saying vagina, you know, and they're comfortable with those terms. And that's where it starts. And that's why it's important to have the parallel class for the parents, because most parents feel like they don't have adequate sex ed in order themselves in order to talk with their children. And so if the kids are in a class, the parents want to know what the kids are learning so that they too can speak with calm and accuracy. Right. And go back to our age and what we had when we were growing up, what kind of sex ed we have, I remember those videos, you separate the kids, don't be still separate them though, right? I believe so. And you need to sometimes be assumption that the world is binary. Right. But again, all they're teaching is the basic mechanics, male, female. What happens when you go to puberty, what happens is somebody gets all those videos and then and then the subject is dropped at that point. But in our program, there's so much conversation going on. And not like the classroom. So how do you explain sexuality like love making to a four or four year old? What's the language or dude, does that not even open up at a four year old or four year old? Well, don't ask how did I come here? You know, well, how babies come from? Yeah, we do covered in the kindergarten. And we often have show and tell because when we have babies, you know, when we have young the outlets, I call them when we have young owls, we often have families where somebody is pregnant, right? So we bring a great person in and touch the tummy and feeling the baby kick. Nice, healthy stuff. But they come with those questions at that age. Where do I come from, you know, right? And besides just the material there, we have a lot of books and a lot of illustration for the children to look at the, you know, tummies and the feed is and how the baby is developing. Are they real pictures or are they cartoon pictures? Can be both, you know, depending on line drawings, or real time life, remember the old time life, one with how a baby is made. Yeah, yeah, sure. I'm from my generation. But they won't have a graphic vagina for like a kindergarten class. No, no, that's when do you when do you what's age appropriate for that junior high? Not even there is there is actually kids are sexualized, sexually active in fourth, fifth, sixth grade. Oh, God, no, it's about that. Is that the fact? It's hard to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Is that worldwide? Mainland US is where most of the stats are from. More so in today's generation, more so today. Yeah. And it's just going back to the hormones with the chickens and how it's affecting all of us growing and maturing faster and periods coming earlier. I mean, how why? Well, and also the dynamics that have changed in society, right? We have way more information. Kids have access to social media and misinformation. That's what we're about is like pornography, misinformation, and even music portrays all that kind of information. And they've got ears, they hear it, you know. And so yeah, and parents are in denial when it comes to chum, they're a child's education. They don't want a child no one knows anything. And the blame it on the other kid for infecting them, right? And they do. And they think that their kids shouldn't be learning things at the age that they're at. But the reality is they're learning from it. They know more than we do. They know more and and much misinformation again. They know things that they learned, you know, behind the school gym rather than. In fact, yeah, when porno choices was introduced, I remember some parents coming out and saying, all those videos are too graphic. I had the same response. I thought too graphic. But you know what? They're out there. They're exposed to that kind of so why not just give it to them in a comfortable, acceptable environment and then going on Google and looking at porn. Hold that thought because I think that's we're touching onto some juicy areas here. Let's when we take a quick break, we'll come back and talk about how pornography and other online exposures can affect or mislead our kids and their views of sexuality. We'll be back. So hello, my name is Josh Green. I serve a senator from the Big Island on the Kona side and I'm also an emergency room physician. My program here on think tech is called Health Care in Hawaii. I'll have guests that should be interesting to you twice a month. We'll talk about issues that range from mental health care to drug addiction to our health care system and any challenges that we face here in Hawaii. We hope you'll join us again. Thanks for supporting think tech. Aloha, I'm Shantel Seville, host of the savvy chick show on think tech Hawaii. Now we are on a mission to help young women and girls achieve their dreams and looking forward to sharing with you one episode a month where young women or girl will share her dream or ultimate goal with you and hope that we can all get together behind her to achieve that goal. Look forward to seeing you there. This is Steve Katz. I'm a marriage and family therapist and I do shrink wrap which is now going to every other week all during the summer and maybe forever after. Take care of your mental health this summer. Have a good time. Do what's fun and take good care of yourself. Bye bye. Can do it. Back here on clock talk on think tech we are talking about healthy sex ed with Gabe and Rev Kyle here. Now I didn't mean to you know cut you off before the break but we're talking about something that needs a little more elaboration. So you're talking about how pornography can influence or mislead the kids. And with social media the kids got their school laptop they got their home laptop and we're not there 24 seven to see over their shoulders to see what's going on. And nowadays kids have to do homework online so you can't prevent them from going on and you're not going to be looking behind their shoulder all the time. So that's why instilling in them values and the ability to assess what they're looking at and what it's saying to them because social media is very influential. Yeah right sex sells every car dealer knows that. Right. So so helping kids understand that they're being influenced by the messages that are coming their way and they may not be true messages that they need to have their own internal yardstick in community. Right. About what they're hearing and what they're seeing and whether that's appropriate or whether it's exploitative. But how how do you educate parents I guess to approach this because every kid's every parent's going to say oh well they'll try to do as many of those what do you call those control. Oh yeah yeah. Control useless. I've tried it doesn't stop them from looking at things. Right. Parents are the first sex educators parents are always the closest in what we do is we support parents. So we give them tools for them to be able to be the best that they can be with their with their kids. That's part of the the class itself and that's part of the curriculum is to help parents find ways and also to learn from each other. One of the things that happens in especially the junior high and senior high classes is that the parents end up being a support group for each other. We talk about the content. What are the kids learning right so that they're informed but then oh man your kid does that too. Oh whoo right. So that's what's normalizing. Right. But when you say normalizing so you said earlier that's you know sexual experiences starting younger and younger and if that's the norm are we parents supposed to accept that and say OK it's alright you're 10 you can go and do it. No. How do we go. And that's why the school promotes abstinence. OK. That's their main topic abstinent and they put a really negative connotation on sex education. Yes. And at this program we really teaches teaches the children that it's part of life. Yes. You know and if we can teach them to grow and accept and that things are beautiful and to do it correct and give them the tools to work with this our program provide that whole atmosphere. So while we don't use the word abstinence as much because of the negative connotation goes with it. We encourage healthy decision making and waiting. We talk about how waiting for sexual expression of a wide variety of sorts is often the better choice for people just in terms of personal maturity. Right. Not just body maturity what your body wants. Yeah. But but internal maturity. So we help kids with it used to be called in my generation values clarification. Right. What is your own value for it for decision making. Right. So it's not about just because they're 10 and they have information they're going to go explore sexuality. Right. The statistics show that the more information kids have especially that's what broadly graded like this the less likely they are to be sexually expressive. But do you believe that each individual whether they're a kid or an adult they have their own sex drive their own genetic makeup of what they want to explore or not. Some people grow up being very kind of asexual and some people find needs in the high drive. I want to talk about masturbation for example that's a sensitive issue that parents hate to kind of bring up but they know what's going on like what are you doing to share that long or even like little kindergartners why you read it why are you rocking on your chair. How do we approach that. So one of the reasons that masturbation is such a hot topic is because of Christianity. So there's a story in Genesis. It's about the story about onan. So onanism is actually quite as interruptus. But it's also been been misunderstood or mistaught to be against masturbation. And one should not masturbate. Evil thing right. Yeah it's a bad thing spilling your seed rather than procreating the assumption don't waste it. Don't waste it. It's already my night quantity. So we have this incredible history that we're working with that's very insidious like no who like do you know the word onanism right. Unlikely but the teaching is out there that masturbation is bad. And so then we have to explore. Okay so what's bad about it if you know your body. Yeah. Yes. Right. It's kind of like pick things sugar or lehing moe anything in excess might well be bad for you. But knowing yourself knowing yourself as a positive thing. Good. And that sexuality is a natural thing. Right. You back to that. It's a healthy part of living. Right. So in this program the parents are with the child. And we just we just went to the 567 grade. And we covered all those areas of masturbation. And without how do you cover. Do you have videos that show or you just talk. You actually talk about masturbation and that you know it does. It's a natural process. You know it comes with puberty. Right. And it comes with exploring and teach them that it's healthy. Right. It's not bad. Yeah. Yeah. And people get really focused on the genitals. But the reality is all of our bodies. We are sensual beings and all of our bodies have arogenous sounds. Right. So part of the exploration is knowing what pleases you. Right. Something to look forward to during that phase. I remember my older son when he was in like six or seventh grade and they separated the boys and girls and their gym teacher who was the sex ed facilitator. Yes. Said OK how many of you guys out there have ever masturbated says if you haven't it's the best feeling you're ever going to have. And it was a great way to kind of introduce things. Yeah. And all the giggles was like oh you know it's not a bad thing. Yeah. And so in this class you know if you're with your child you know you'll experience one day you're a son or daughter now their room is locked. Right. And they set up locking doors and what are you doing in here. It's a natural process. Let them grow through that and experience that. So what don't knock on the door. Don't knock on the door just say like they're exploring privately rather than with you know somebody else. Yeah. OK so do you allow locked doors when you have their partners at home. Is this like an individual family value thing. It is. It is. It is. OK. We're not about prescriptive in that way. Yeah. My niece who had like eight daughters. Wow. And she told the girls if you have your male friends come over please do not close the door. And they close the door. The next of your male partner on your male friend comes here please do not close the door. By the third door all the doors from the room was taken off the hinges. She put curtains in there just so they're privacy right but they were not separated from the parents kind of roaming about checking in parents kind of need to do that. They have to provide the boundaries. You have to put your foot down. How open your parents and parenting you need to be the parent you need to decide what your values are and what rules you're going to enforce and go out and get education yourself as well. Do you think there's a double standard with how teenage boys are allowed to bring girls over but girls you should not best not to it's but you know don't close doors. You should treat them equally. Should yeah but absolutely sexism is real women. I mean that's have you been watching the Olympics have you seen how women's successes are being portrayed as distinct from men's successes. It's everywhere in the world and and it still is part of all the society's that I know of. Yeah. Right. So yes and then what are we going to do about it. Right. We can rail against it. We can ignore it or we can try to address it calmly. Yeah. But directly. What would you say the hardest thing would be in sex ed for kids would be you know if you had to kind of pick one area that was hard to address. What would you think. I would think that it is pure pressure. They get information from respected respected that is so true because it's vague. They know they believe their respective peers but so much of what their peers tell them is not accurate in the high school program. We have exercises where they can actually practice how to say no. Yeah. And they come out of the program role playing. Good. You know we set up scenarios and by the end of that class session they are pretty confident that if they ever are circumstances they know how to deal with that. And so yeah we teach them to work on their self esteem. You know communication decision making problem solving all of that comes with. And I remember they go become sex educators or their peers. Yes. So they some of them intervene and come back and tell stories of hearing someone tell up tell something that was wrong the accurate and they're speaking up in their group. You know they have all this little gossip guys and girls say that's not correct. You know I just attended the all program. What is this all program is that my church they teach sex. Well it's not yeah we don't preach religion it's just happened to be a place where this program is being offered. So on that note can you tell us a little bit about the program that you are going to be a focusing on younger for the elementary school kids. It is the fourth look great for five six four five six. So we have curriculum for these various age groups on one the next one that's coming up is for four five six it begins in September. We have a mandatory parents meeting mandatory. Good parents meeting. Right. We also provide childcare. Yeah for all of the all of the classes. And the mandatory meeting is just for the parents to sit in to hear what the program have to offer. Right. And get a full perspective before they choose to sign up. Yes. Yeah it's a great meeting it's a four hour but that's where they get that's where they can send all their questions. We do lots of food. This program lots of food. Lots of potlucks and lots of food everybody's parents. Sorry discussions engage in conversations about their sexual experiences because we don't quite important to know that it actually does go that way in part because parents own value systems and what they teach their kids come out of their own life experiences. Right. Positive experiences are negative experiences that influences what they what how they move in the world. I think culturally to you mentioned that earlier game I think that's really important because you know let's see coming from a Chinese family you know we were brought up to feel like you shouldn't be walking around naked and you know sex is a dirty word and God forbid you talk about it over dinner. One of the great funniest exercise we have in the parents of the first class is we say the word penis right and now and yeah and all like you know let's share that's the title penis. We want slang words we want street words and we want scientific words of penis and the group starts offline by the middle of the exercise. They're just yelling it out laughing like I'm dead you know 60 old grandma you know whatever word she was you know and we would laugh with laugh with like I never heard that no that's a Chinese word that's a Filipino word and by then we're warmed up to the next exercise at that point. So we really what's the Hawaiian word for penis and that's proper. Yeah. Okay. Was there a slang Hawaiian word for it that we should know about. Oh lots of Filipino and lots of different yeah for the Hawaiian must fill it out. We need to know the parents need to be educated. I should have brought their list. But that's a nice warm up exercise for the parents. Oh so the parents yell it out but the kids don't get to yell in their own class. They're having to say their own. Yeah for this age group. Yeah. That would not be good to have a nine year old coming home and saying yeah. But it's amazing you bring the list together and the seven nine year old their list is like 18 and the parents their list is like 14. You know we know all the slang words and all the street. We've all been there. And so anyway going back to our program. Go ahead. No go on. I know that the program is starts October 2nd through November 27. It's every Sunday from one to three and how do people sign up. They can contact the Unitarian First Unitarian Church. OK. And I left the website with Zuri. OK. And I'll leave a phone contact. We should we should have a phone contact on here maybe too. Well people can get the website and know more about it but it's coming up in October. And if there's anything they can ask questions and we encourage questions all the time. Yeah. Great. OK. Well that's fabulous. I mean this is just the tip of the iceberg in learning about your bodies and how you view it and sexuality amongst your peers and everyone. So I think this is a wonderful topic. Thank you both of you for sharing your views. Thank you for having us with the workshop. I think it must be fun and then stimulating for both of you as well. It is wonderful. How old are your children. My eleven thirteen and sixteen. So yeah it's always a sensitive issue. You may want to look into the program. Really it takes a lot of pressure on you. I will definitely look into it and enrich myself as well as my kids and say that penis is not a bad word. Yeah. All right. That's all for today to take it with you and enjoy the rest of the day. We'll see you next week.