I take great delight in not having attended a mormon church service since 1988. I also enjoy comparing my current church youth invovlement with the days when I was a young mom and Beehive Advisor.
As my group of 8th graders milled about waiting for their parents to pick them up after Sunday School today, there were some slight similarities to mormon teens. They were coming to the end of three hours of meeting time. The entire 3 hours with the same two instructors though. They are all at that stage of early adolescence where everything is a double entendre and some things are only funny to them. They test their fences to see how far they will be allowed to fly on their own and what will cause them to be reigned in.
They were sharing messages on one another’s cell phones, and inflated condoms were flying above their heads being tapped back into the air by some who said, “My dad will freak, I can’t be holding this when he comes in” to, “hey, there’s my mom, Mom – heads up, don’t let that condom hit the floor.”
I am the co-facilitator of our church’s sexuality education program, “Our Whole Lives,” (OWL). We teach two topics approximately every other Sunday. Today’s topics were masturbation and contraception.
Co-teacher David gave a linguistics presentation on the word masturbation. It comes from the Latin mastubari meaning to rape or defile by hand. Not a definition our group liked. In Japanese there are two terms, one for women and one for men. The translation for the men, senswari, is simply “one thousand strokes.” The women’s translation monswari, is “ten thousand strokes.” This lead to some excellent discussion.
Most of our time was spent with a wide variety of contraceptive products. David and I each have a case with various over the counter and prescription products to discuss in gender alike groups. And lots of condoms, and anatomically correct wooden phalluses upon which to practice unrolling a condom.
I asked the participants which methods of contraception seemed easiest to get and use. All seemed to prefer over the counter products that did not require having to talk to anyone about them.
And another similarity to teens everywhere – snack time is extremely important!
That is wonderful. I can only imagine how my life might have been different if I'd had people in it at that age who were that open about sexual matters.
Above all--be honest! Birth control isn't enough! Talk to them about how they're going to feel both now and in the future about their behavior! Only they can make the decisions--but use a condom is not the only thing they need to hear from us!
is our motto. Below I have listed all the topics we cover:
Introduction to the Program Examining Values Sexual Language Anatomy and Physiology (Slide set #1) Personal Concerns about Puberty Understanding Gender Roles Movie - Juno Teenage Pregnancy Sexual Orientation Gender Identity * Introduction to Relationships Guest Panel - (2 from PFLAG) Relationship Skills Thorny Issues in Friendship Disability and other diversity issues Dating and Lifetime Commitments Lovemaking is More than Sex (Slide Set #2) Defining/Redefining Abstinence Sexual Decisions Contraception Masturbation and Other Sexual Behaviors (Slide Set #3) Conception, Planned Pregnancy, and Birth (Movie, Journey into Life) Unintended Pregnancy Options STD Facts STD Prevention Recovering from Sexual Abuse Sexual Harassment and Acquaintance Rape
All I can say, msmom, is WOW, this is wonderful! I wish such a comprehensive program had been in place in my church (non-mo)when I was growing up. Great job!
We do a complete parent orientation prior to enrolling any teens. Most parents did not grow up UU and did not get this kind of info growing up.
The kids start out really shy and reticent. They are currently totally into it and not the least shy. At one lesson there is a "stand in this corner if you agree with this statement" activity. One of the agreement points said something about mutual orgasm the kids yelled "orgasm - I'm all for that - hey over here, this is the mutual orgasm corner."
These are the same kids who entered the course afraid to talk about anatomy or use the language of sexuality in coed groups.
After our last lesson we invite the parents for a luncheon and the teens pick some favorite lessons that they share with the parents. They are not at all shy about trying to make the parents squirm.