Elsa Roberts Press Releases

Two Presidencies in One: Welcoming our New Co-presidents

As we move deeper into the new year, Secular Woman is excited to announce some changes to our board. Our president and co-founder, Kim Rippere, has stepped down as president and will remain on the board, taking on the role of bookkeeper. In her stead Monette Richards and Elsa Roberts, formerly Vice President, are assuming the presidency together. This move toward co-presidency is part of an effort to make our work and organization less hierarchical and to better share the burden of work that presiding over a volunteer board brings.

“Founding and leading SW has been a joy and an honor.” says Kim Rippere. “So many have supported SW and its mission to promote feminist, secular, progressive ideals throughout the atheist/secular community and the broader community. These ideals continue to be challenged, even as progress is made. For the betterment of SW, now is the time for a change in leadership. I am so proud that Elsa Roberts and Monette Richards are the Co-Presidents and are working to sustain and develop SW for the future.”

Both Elsa and Monette are excited for the challenge and appreciative of Kim breaking the path before them. “We are so grateful for Kim’s leadership and foresight in founding this organization” says Elsa Roberts, “without her we would not exist. Monette and I look forward to continuing her legacy and forging our own, endeavoring to direct Secular Woman in of support secular women, by giving voice to them and their concerns.”

We are launching two projects that we hope will do just that, one we announced at the end of last year, our indexing and wiki project. Our indexing project aims to be a central repository for movement history, including indexing movement publications, court cases individuals and organizations were involved in, etc. The Wiki project ties in with this because it is documenting women in the movement, both past and present, so that their contributions won’t be forgotten. We are also happy to announce that we are starting a listserv that is dedicated to increasing the networking, exposure, and support between women involved in the secular movement.

What are we Talking About
Elsa Roberts Article

Weekly Roundup: What Are We Talking About?

Straight from our Member’s Only Group to you, what we and our members are reading and discussing!

It’s been a busy week of sharing, discussing, and reading in our Member’s group this week. There is a petition circulating to elect a female president of the Royal Society; certainly a timely call in light of Tim Hunt’s sexist comments about female scientists. It’s also worth noting that there has been no female president since the society was established in 1660; we think it is time for a change!

Evidence has been uncovered that a U.S. Army doctor performed horrendous and torturous experiments on soldiers for many years, including inducing shock and likely sexually assaulting students under the guise of medical procedures. So far he is being cited for training he provided to students during the years of 2012 to 2013 but there is evidence to indicate that officials knew of his experiments as long ago as 2005 and allowed them to continue.

Juneteenth vigils and celebrations were held all over the U.S., taking on special poignancy in light of the terrorist violence in Charleston where 9 black people were slaughtered in church by a white supremacist. In Rhode Island, vigils were held to remember black women killed by police.

Finally, a woman’s face will grace the 10 dollar bill starting in 2020 (the 100 year anniversary of women’s right to vote) but we still can’t decide who should be on the bill. Can you?

And last, but far from least, we are getting so exciting about the Secular Women Work conference being held in Minneapolis from August 21st – 23rd. If you need a scholarship to attend the deadline for applying is July 6th!

Iris Vander Pluym Iris Vander Pluym's Blog, salon

Richard Dawkins, hysterical dumbass.

[CONTENT NOTE: misogyny; harassment; rape; rape apologia.]

Richard Dawkins has been keeping himself very busy indeed during his stay as an involuntary organ donor in the Palace Abattoir. In response to a widely-read piece by Mark Oppenheimer about misogyny in the atheoskeptisphere, he has bravely taken to Twitter to defend his BFF Michael Shermer, the notorious subject of multiple accusations of predatory sexual behavior toward women. Shermer’s MO, as described in the Oppenheimer piece by TAM staffer Alison Smith, shares most of the typical hallmarks of an overwhelming number of rapists-at-large: boundary testing; planning assaults using sophisticated strategies to isolate victims; deploying psychological manipulation, e.g., power, control; and last but certainly not least, using alcohol deliberately in order to render targets more vulnerable if not outright unconscious. They calculate, quite correctly it turns out, that this particular modus operandi puts them at miniscule risk of ever being accused—let alone reported, investigated, arrested, prosecuted, convicted and jailed. Regardless of whether you believe Smith’s or other women’s accounts regarding Shermer, these are just facts, and this is how rape culture works in the real world.

But not in Dawkinsland, it doesn’t. Nope! Yesterday, in defense of Michael Shermer the Infallible King of Reason tweeted:

Officer, it’s not my fault I was drunk driving. You see, somebody got me drunk.” –Richard Dawkins

Astute readers will note that this is Richard Dawkins taking Smith’s allegations as true, knowing that by all accounts (including his own) Shermer was sober during the alleged incident, and then oh-so-very-cleverly sneering that she is responsible—by likening an alleged rape victim to a drunk driver.

Here’s Stephanie Zvan with a nice fisk:

He doesn’t appear to believe Shermer’s story, which is that Shermer had sex with Smith after she sobered up. Dawkins took Smith’s story as read, although he isolated it from Ashley’s story and Pamela’s.

Then he ignored the parts of that story that make Smith’s lack of consent and Shermer’s knowledge of it clear. He ignored that Shermer followed Smith away from the party. He ignored the promise to help Smith back to her room, only to end up in Shermer’s. Instead, he grasped the fact that Smith was drunk to the point of not remembering parts of the evening and used that to assign responsibility to her. He claimed Smith was responsible for the encounter despite the one fact that both parties agree on being that Shermer was sober.

He believed her story, not Shermer’s.

He believed she was intoxicated.

He knew Shermer was not, from all sources of information.

He believed Shermer deceived her in the process of getting her past the point of being able to consent.

Then he tweeted that she was responsible for the encounter.

Then he compared Shermer following Smith away from the party to Smith driving drunk.

Then he compared Shermer taking Smith to a different room than promised to Smith driving drunk.

Then he compared Shermer sexually assaulting Smith to Smith driving drunk.

I’ma say this once more for the cheap seats:

THE ONLY THING A RAPE VICTIM HAS DONE “WRONG” IS TO FIND HERSELF (OR HIMSELF) IN THE PRESENCE OF A RAPIST.

Fortunately, the vast majority of men do not rape. But those who do can always rely on victim-blaming shitweasels like Richard Dawkins to provide comfort and cover, so they can continue to operate unimpeded.

Then the Lord of All Logic tweeted this:

The REAL Rape Culture: “All occurrences of sexual intercourse are rape unless there is certified evidence to the contrary.” –Richard Dawkins

No, my precious little cupcake: All occurrences of sexual intercourse are rape unless there is consent. This is really not difficult for most people to grok. And I find it… telling interesting when people are so highly motivated not to grok it. Before he deleted this tweet (“claiming it was sarcastic. There’s no word on what part of it he didn’t mean, however…”), he responded to a follower concerned that he “might fall in trouble again with Feminists”:

With a certain kind of feminist, of course. Not with feminists who truly respect women instead of patronising them as victims –Richard Dawkins

This one sent PZ off on a righteous rant (which I highly recommend reading in its entirety):

Who are these mysterious patronizing feminists? They don’t actually exist. You are echoing a strategy of denial: you approve of feminists, but not the ones who actually point out sexist problems in our culture, or fight against discrimination, or point out that they’ve been raped, or abused, or cheated in the workplace, or any of the other realities of a sexist culture. This is what anti-feminists say: be quiet about the problems. If you mention the problems, you are perpetuating the sisterhood of oppression, you are playing the martyr, you are being a pathetic victim who must be treated with contempt.

But if no woman speaks out about the problems, how will we ever know to correct them? If we shame every victim for being a victim and daring to reveal her victimhood, it becomes very easy to pretend that there is no oppression.

Oh, silly PZ! You see, in Dawkinsville there are no “victims,” only irresponsible drunk drivers crashing themselves willy-nilly right into rapists’ penises!

But this morning’s tweet absolutely takes the cake:

Raping a drunk woman is appalling. So is jailing a man when the sole prosecution evidence is “I was too drunk to remember what happened.” –Richard Dawkins

Heh.

Hahaha.

HOLY SHIT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 

Now, Twitter is a unique medium with pros and cons like every other; suffice it to say it does not particularly lend itself to schooling pompous assholes on the many wonders of reality. But I did my best:

 

@RichardDawkins false reports: est. 2-8%. Rape hugely underreported. 3% of rapist[s] do jail time. Now go away and learn how to think. –Iris Vander Pluym

(Incidentally, citations for these statistics can be found all over the fucking internet here and here.)

@RichardDawkins As if men are prosecuted when “the sole prosecution evidence is ‘I was too drunk to remember what happened.'” #dumbass –Iris Vander Pluym

Jeezus. “I was too drunk to remember what happened” is exculpatory evidence: it creates reasonable doubt and nearly always benefits the accused. That is why prosecutors almost universally do not take such cases to trial: when they do, they lose, and this is true even when they present heaps of additional incriminating evidence to a jury. Seriously, this has got to be the stupidest thing His Intellectual Excellency has ever said—and that is saying something, my friends.

PZ’s plea to Dawkins closes:

And could you please stop supporting reactionary anti-feminists? Thanks.

No, he cannot. Because the World’s Greatest Rationalist is a reactionary anti-feminist, and thus there is no reasoning with him.

[for Tony.]

[cross-posted at Perry Street Palace.]

 

 

 

 

 

Elsa Roberts Article

Secular Woman Award Nominees Wanted

It’s that time of year again! Through the month of August Secular Woman will be collecting nominations for our annual Secular Woman Awards.

We have five categories: Secular Woman of the Year, Activist of the Year, Blog of the Year, Man of the Year, Member of the Year.

If you missed last year’s awards you should check out our 2013 winners, which include activists like Sikivu Hutchinson. Check out their accomplishments in the secular movement and then fill out this form* to nominate folks this year who are working hard embracing and living the mission and values of Secular Woman, and when you’re done encourage your friends to nominate too!

*We do ask that all nominees aside from the Man of the Year identify as women.

E A Higgins E A Higgins' Blog, salon

Women Against Birth Control

Recently there has been a series of images circulating the internet depicting a number of women holding signs explaining why they do not utilize birth control. While one or two of the reasons given can be seen as rational (e.g. they want to be “organic” and hormone free), there are many of the statements that are not only highly illogical, but also downright offensive. Among those that fall into the latter category are statements like “because my body is a gift to my future husband and that gift includes motherhood” and “because [birth control] allows men to use women with no consequences.” There are nearly two dozen more images with proclamations like the aforementioned including “because I can control myself,” “because I am responsible and make mindful decisions accepting the consequences for my actions,” or better yet “because children are not an inconvenience, they’re a gift”. What these women seem to be forgetting, what a lot of people on the anti-birth control band wagon have forgotten, is that what is good for them is not good for everyone else, and how you act is not how everyone else acts, and it really is just that simple.

A favorite of mine that was posted is “because I don’t have to give up my womanhood to be a feminist.” By the time I got to this statement, I was already scrambling to pick my jaw up off the ground, but when I finished reading it, I was dumbfounded. I’m not exactly grasping what this woman seems to know as truth. First, since when does having children mean one cannot be a feminist, and second, since when does feminism require you to not have children and to use birth control? The answer to these questions is since never. Never have I heard the feminists I know say or imply that being on birth control is a requirement to be a feminist. The statement she made is just further proof to me that there are still an incredible amount of women who have been mislead about feminism, albeit what “feminism” means to an individual tends to be quite subjective.

Also referenced in a few of the photos in the series, although not cited or peer reviewed, were some interesting science and medical facts. Apparently, at least according to one of the women pictured, women get cervical cancer from birth control alone, and not from things such Human papillomavirus (HPV), which using protection and getting vaccinated can prevent. There is no link between the use of general birth control and developing cervical cancer. The link here is from an increased risk for developing cervical cancer due to long term use of birth control pills in women who already have HPV and leave it unchecked and the symptoms untreated. While I can’t address every single absurd claim of phony science in the photos, I feel like it should also be noted that the same sign also mentioned a link between birth control and breast cancer. This link is also an increased risk, but this was back in the 1970s primarily, when birth control had high amounts of estrogen, not so much with the low dose pills these days. But if hormones are what are deterring these women from birth control there are alternative no-hormone options.

A running theme amongst the images that I found to be exceptionally flabbergasting is the way the word “womanhood” is used, for example “because womanhood and fertility are a beautiful gift and I want a love that is self-giving and life-giving.” What saddens me is how many of the women pictured define womanhood not by the fact that they have vaginas, or feel themselves to be women, but are dictated by ancient value systems of whether or not they reproduce, as though having children is a measure of merit to how worthy one is of their womanhood. Womanhood does not equal motherhood. The two are not synonymous, will never be synonymous, and have never been synonymous. People who say or believe things like that are essentially reduce the countless number of women throughout history who have been unable to have children or have chosen not to have children to what? What exactly is it that these women are implying? Is a woman who does not have any children but is accomplished in other aspects less of a woman because she has not bore children? Many of these same women in the photo series also mentioned how they don’t use birth control because they only plan to have sex for the purposes of producing life (e.g. the one who said that her body essentially belongs to her future husband, and should be fertile and ready to reproduce).

Throw in the reference to Roman Catholic family planning and I can hear the church bells a-ringing.

Elsa Roberts salon

Announcing Secular Woman Salon

Secular Woman is incredibly pleased and excited to announce the start of a new project that will add to the growing number of incredible voices writing on issues of concern to secular women, and that project is the Secular Woman Salon! The Salon is a new outlet on our website for the latest in opinion, think pieces, and news for secular women, as well as anyone interested in advancing the cause of social justice with a secular lens.

Through this project we hope to, quite literally, advance our mission of amplifying the voices of secular women by establishing a dedicated space where the causes, issues, and thoughts of such women will be foregrounded. Here you can expect to find articles, opinions, and discussions with an intersectional, feminist sensibility that are nuanced, intelligent, and sometimes angry. In this space we’ll be working to ensure that the voices and issues of import to women and other marginalized groups are front and center.

To ensure this we have put together a salon that is comprised of a fantastic group of writers who are as excited to be participating in this new endeavor as we are to have them. They come from a wide array of backgrounds with many interests and areas of expertise, and we couldn’t be more pleased that they have chosen to join us!

Without further ado, please peruse their bios below, and check out our first articles that have been published!

Iris Vander PluymIris Vander Pluym is an artist, activist and writer based in New York City. Raised to believe Nice Girls™ never discuss religion, sex or politics, it turns out those are pretty much the only topics she ever wants to talk about. A self-described “unapologetic, godless, feminist lefty,” Ms. Vander Pluym blogs at Perry Street Palace; she is also a regular columnist at The Political Junkies for Progressive Democracy, a contributor to Worldwide Hippies/Citizen Journalists Exchange and an occasional guest poster at Pharyngula, The Greanville Post and elsewhere. Follow her on Facebook, or @irisvanderpluym.

Elizabeth Higgins E.A. Higgins is a freelance writer from Los Angeles, California. A published ethnographer and graduate student studying Geography, she researches religion across the globe and the impacts it has on people and the planet. She enjoys writing about issues relating to women, humanism, secularism, and in her free time enjoys traveling, painting, and spending time with her boyfriend and her dog. Follow her on twitter or instagram (Darthlyzzious).

Marina MartinezMarina Martinez lives in Portland, Oregon with her boyfriend, Ben, her dog, Pepper, and her cat, Medusa. She enjoys being fat, being loud, long walks on the beach, and general awesomeness. You can find her on Twitter @marinaisgo, on Facebook, or by email at marinarosemartinez (at) gmail (dot) com.

Autumn Reinhardt-SimpsonAutumn Reinhardt Simpson is a librarian, activist and writer originally from Kennewick, Washington.  She received her Master of Library and Information Science with a concentration in Archival Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2008.

She spends all of her hard earned peanuts on travel to the U.K. and unnecessary fabric purchases in pursuit of the perfect warrior-inspired fashion. Autumn is the founder and organizer of Richmond (VA) Clinic Defense and delights in being a secular thorn in the side of the local authorities. She is currently at work on both a memoir as well as a book of essays in addition to the odd article.

She appreciates sewing, knitting and all things involving needles (except heroin), Katha Pollitt, travel and female warriors. When not sewing, she can be found pumping iron at the local YMCA.

Sara LoneSara affectionately refers to herself as a “millennial on a mission.” This mission? Creating a safer world for everyone, particularly women and non-religious folks in all the vast corners of the earth. Sara truly believes that education and cultural awareness will pave the way for tolerance, a virtue desperately needed in these extremely difficult and tumultuous times. Currently earning her Master’s degree in public policy, Sara fights relentlessly for women’s rights and separation of church and state on a policy level by regularly speaking out and lobbying on behalf of these causes. She has written for and worked with several organizations; a monthly columnist for Sacramento Reason and a weekly writer for The Humanist, she hopes to reach an even wider audience through Secular Woman, telling stories, sharing knowledge, and contributing to the growth of the secular women’s movement.

JadehawkKarolina Lewis is a student of environmental sociology and social theory who writes about theory and practice of social issues such as feminism, environmental justice, mental health, and secularism/skepticism. She formerly blogged at Jadehawk’s Blog.

Major Mike MansplainerMuch to his dismay, Major Mike Mansplainer is a fictional character, dredged up from deep within the lizard brain of Michael X.  As for the pseudonymous Michael X, he is a middle-aged suburban dad who writes and co-hosts a podcast for Secular Nation Magazine.  Tweet @Dofang for Michael X, and @MajMansplainer for his evil twin.

Corrina AllenCorrina Allen has been an educator in Central New York for the last decade and is the founder and president of the CNY Humanist Association. She lives with her book reviewer husband and their two young daughters in a house overflowing with books. She loves to dabble in all things creative – from drawing, crocheting, and designing mosaics to dancing in a jazz ensemble. You can find her on Instagram or Twitter @corrinaaallen.

M. A. MelbyM. A. Melby was born on a farm in rural Minnesota.  She studied physics and music as an undergraduate and applied physics and computer music composition at the graduate level.  After teaching college level integrated science in Flint, Michigan for seven years, she accepted a position teaching physics within a health sciences program in Minnesota.

During her college years, she was highly involved in student government and served as the Minnesota State University Student Association Cultural Diversity Representative from her campus.  She currently blogs at sinmantyx.wordpress.com and is a contributor at Transadvocate. She is active on twitter and serves as a Block Bot admin; frequently documenting online abuse. She was the lead author of the change.org petition presented by Secular Woman, asking the Southern Poverty Law Center to list Gender Identity Watch as a hate group.

Elsa RobertsElsa is currently a graduate student, pursuing a M.S. in Rhetoric and Technical Communication, but her real calling is to perpetual activism and teaching. She is frequently distracted by planning actions, attending meetings, and fighting people who are wrong on the internet. Her passions are typically aroused by thoughtless city planning for pedestrians and cyclists, casual sexism, poorly constructed arguments, and being told to “chill” about inequality. She is the current Vice President of Secular Woman (and heading the Salon project) and can be found tweeting wildly about a variety of subjects @elsalroberts.

Secular Woman Article

Secular Woman Celebrates Second Year

We can hardly believe it, but Secular Woman is celebrating its two year anniversary today! Over the past two years we’ve been lucky enough to establish a wonderful and supportive member base who continually remind us of what secular women can accomplish and why Secular Woman was founded in the first place – so that secular women could have a dedicated voice.

Over the past two years, we’ve been privileged to be able to take part in many actions that support secular women. This year we participated in Free Thought Blog’s online conference by running a track of panels on topics from sexual harassment and the law to religion and homeschooling. We’ve organized and taken part in numerous twitter chats to provide a space for and encourage women to talk about issues of importance to them. Among our favorite recent chats are Secular Mental Health (#SecularMH) – where we focused on dealing with mental health without religion, Women’s History Month (#HerStoryNow) – which focused on current women’s accomplishments, and our co-sponsorship of Stop Street Harassment – where we led a chat on harassment at conferences.

This year we also began supporting Rebecca Watson’s Patreon video project, where she makes hilarious videos on science, feminism, and skepticism. And we are a sponsor of the secular magazine The Celestial Teapot. Most recently, we are proud to support a new LA Women’s Atheist Group started by Amy Roth, whose purpose is to foster a safe/supportive space for atheist/agnostic women.

We are very proud of the projects developed over the last year, such as @AbortTheocracy – a project created to advocate for reproductive rights and fight against theocratic encroachment and the campaign aimed at ending stigma over abortion that @AbortTheocracy began running in the summer of last year, our ShameLESS campaign. Also, as part of @AbortTheocracy we’ve participated in Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month.

We’ve voiced our support for women in other ways as well. In February, Secular Woman, under @AbortTheocracy, signed on to the National Women’s Law Center’s amicus brief in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius. And last fall Secular Woman members spearheaded a petition to the Southern Poverty Law Center urging them to list Gender Identity Watch (a group that targets trans people for harassment) as a hate group.

We are excited to begin our third year working to amplify the voices of secular women and the issues important to them. Our focus this year is on advocating for the bodily autonomy of women and providing ways for women to better connect with one another.

Thank you to our members and supporters for another wonderful year!

Sincerely,

The Secular Woman Board of Directors
Kim, Elsa, Becca, Brandon, Nicole, and Monette

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Secular Woman is an educational non-profit organization whose mission is to amplify the voice, presence, and influence of non-religious women. For more information about Secular Woman visit: www.SecularWoman.org.

@AbortTheocracy is a project focused on the intersection of religious power over women’s bodily autonomy and sovereignty, dedicated to terminating that connection by opposing religious influence in government.

Secular Woman Article

FtBCon2: Secular Woman Track

Secular Woman's track at FtBCon 2 focused on sexual harassment laws, STEM, 2013 trends, women of color and social justice, and homeschooling.  Below you will find the video for each.

Sexual Harassment Law and You: In the past year anti-harassment policies have become more common at conventions as communities have begun to discuss how harassment can deter guests and ruin the convention experience. But how do these privately adopted policies mesh with America’s public anti-harassment laws? Ken White, attorney and legal blogger, will outline how American anti-harassment laws work, how convention policies supplement them, and how best practices can make them more effective.  There is also a related quiz.

Women in STEM:  Join a group of women working in the fields of science and technology as they discuss issues relevant to being a woman in STEM, how their atheism intersects with their science.

 

Trends in 2013:  Kim Rippere, Julia Burke, Elsa Roberts, and MA Melby will discuss trends and developments in 2013 at the intersection of social justice, feminism, and equality in the secular movement and beyond.

 

Social Justice and Young Women of Color:  Kim Veal (of the Black Freethinkers) will join Raina Rhoades (of Rhoades to Reality) to host a panel on the issues social justice and young women of color. They will be joined by Noa Jones and Georgina Capetillo. They’ll be discussing the topic and taking questions from viewers.

Religion and  Homeschooling:  A free flowing discussion about homeschooling, religion, and gender. Reprising the discussion from the 3rd Annual International Day of Protest Against Hereditary Religion.

 

Secular Woman Article

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Secular Woman Article

How Sex Education Can Combat Sexual Violence

How Sex Education Can Combat Sexual Violence
By Miri Mogilevsky, blogs at Brute Reason

Comprehensive, evidence-based sex education is usually framed as a remedy for the usual culprits: STI transmission, teenage pregnancy, having sex “too early” or with “too many” different partners, and so on. Although this sex-positive feminist bristles at the fact that one of the goals of comprehensive sex ed is to delay sexual initiation and reduce teens’ number of sexual partners, overall these programs are extremely important to promote, and they are effective at reducing STIs and pregnancy in teens—unlike abstinence-only sex ed.

However, I would argue that the goals of secular, scientific sex education should not end there. I believe that we have the responsibility to teach young people sexual ethics and to use education to challenge a culture that too often excuses or even promotes sexual violence.

How do we accomplish such a monumental task? The same way as we teach kids to do school projects: by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable parts.

Rape culture is an ideology that consists of a number of interrelated but distinct beliefs about gender, sexuality, and violence. These beliefs are spread and enforced by just about every source of information that a child interacts with: parents, friends, teachers, books, movies, news stories (on TV, in magazines and newspapers, online), music, advertising, laws, etc..

Traditional, abstinence-only sex education promotes a number of these beliefs in various ways. Here are a few messages that these programs send to teens either implicitly or explicitly, along with how these messages support rape culture:

1. It is a woman’s job to prevent sex from happening.

Abstinence-only sex ed is full of religious ideology, and one example is the idea that women are “clean” and “pure” and must safeguard their own chastity before men can strip them of it. This idea suggests to women that 1) men who keep pushing them for sex are not doing anything wrong, and 2) if they eventually get pressured into having sex, that’s not rape—that’s just the woman not being strong-willed enough.

2. Men always want sex.

A corollary to the previous message, the “men always want sex” meme implies that men who use coercion and/or violence to get sex are only doing what’s natural for them. It also erases male victims of sexual assault, because if men want sex all the time, how could they possibly be raped?

3. Once you’ve had premarital sex, you’re dirty and ruined forever.

Abstinence-only programs promote this idea by using disgusting metaphors like a lollipop that’s been sucked on and discarded, or by having children spit into a glass of water that gets passed around, or by having them rip a paper heart up to symbolize each time they have sex before marriage. Tragically, rapists and abusers use this message against their victims, convincing them that nobody will ever want them now that they’ve been “ruined.” Sometimes this prevents victims from doing anything to try to escape the situation, as Elizabeth Smart attests.

4. Premarital sex is immoral and bad; married and monogamous sex is virtuous and good.

This false dichotomy serves to erase the fact that abuse, sexual assault, and plain ol’ bad sex can happen even within a committed marriage. It may also teach teens to expect that their premarital sexual experiences will all be “Bad” and there’s no avoiding it. This means that teens who are being assaulted or abused may not realize that there’s anything “wrong” with what’s going on; after all, they were warned that premarital sex is bad, weren’t they? Here’s a great take on this from another blogger:

Sex-negative messages don’t keep people from having sex.  They keep people from having good sex.  They keep people from having pride in their sexuality, from sexual self-awareness.  They keep people from asking questions about sex, and communicating with their partners.  They discourage experimentation.  They blur the lines between consensual sex and rape by framing all sex as an undifferentiated mass of “bad.”  They combine victim-blaming with generalized guilt about sex, so that perpetrator and survivor are equally culpable.  Basically, they take logic and reason out of the equation.

5. If you have premarital sex, you are a bad person.
Similarly to the last message, the idea that having premarital sex makes you a bad or sinful person erases the distinction between ethical and unethical sex. If everyone who has sex before marriage is a bad person, why bother distinguishing between a bad person who gets consent for sex and a bad person who rapes? Why distinguish between a bad person who rapes and a bad person who “lets” themselves be raped?

There are many more terrible messages that abstinence-only sex education promotes, but I’ll stop there. To be clear, abstinence-only sex ed does not cause these messages to appear in our culture; they were already there. (Religion was probably a major cause, but it certainly wasn’t the whole story.) Children will learn these messages even if they are not religious and do not get this type of sex education.

But abstinence-only sex ed does promote these messages and cause them to become even more entrenched, and failing to challenge them is just about as bad as promoting them, in my view. Educators have a remarkable opportunity to challenge kids’ and teens’ ideas about the world in ways that parents may not be able to. Why not take advantage of that?

A truly evidence-based sex education program must do away not only with lies and exaggerations about STIs, pregnancy, and condom effectiveness, but also with the dominant, rarely-challenged scripts about sexuality that abstinence-only sex ed promotes. Here are some ways to do that. They’re just a start, but they would make a difference.

1. Sex education should center consent in the conversation. Consent, rather than arbitrary notions of morality, should be the standard by which we measure sexual activities to determine whether or not they are ethical. Consensual sex, of course, is not necessarily problem-free, but it’s a far better place for teens to start. Conversely, of course, nonconsensual sex (that is, sexual assault) is never okay.

2. It should emphasize that sex and sexuality are not shameful. While comprehensive sex education, unlike abstinence-only, does not explicitly shame anyone for having sex, it still treats reduction of sexual behavior in general (not just of risky sexual behavior) as a positive goal to aim for. That sends the message that less sex is better than more sex, and therefore that there’s something wrong with having sex.

3. It should challenge gender roles and stereotypes. Regressive, inaccurate ideas about gender don’t just keep women out of leadership roles and STEM jobs; they actually cause bad sex in the best case and sexual assault in the worst. The idea that men pursue and women are pursued; that men always want sex and women always want Tru Luv; that women should take it as a “compliment” when they are objectified and harassed—all of these things encourage and excuse sexual assault. Not to mention the fact that they’re extremely heteronormative.

4. It should remind teens that not wanting to have sex is okay. When sex ed programs discuss the option of not being sexually active, it’s usually framed either as a moral choice (in abstinence-only sex education) or as a smart move to prevent negative health outcomes (in comprehensive sex ed). Either way, not having sex is portrayed as a difficult but ultimately superior choice that teens must make by resisting peer pressure and hormones. But in fact, some people are asexual and have no sexual desire or attraction to resist. It’s important to validate this as part of the spectrum of sexual diversity, not only so that asexual teens feel accepted, but so that their peers learn not to pressure them.

5. It should deemphasize (although not completely negate) the importance of relationships and marriage. This is surely a controversial stance and I think nuance is important here. But my reasoning is this: the extreme importance that committed relationships (and especially marriage) are allocated in our society plays a part in keeping people trapped in abusive relationships. Teens who don’t feel that they can experience sex, affection, or love outside of the context of a monogamous relationship may feel pressured to stay in one that they know isn’t healthy, but that is providing them with some combination of those things. 

It would probably take a book and dozens of paper citations to fully explain how and why sex education should combat sexual violence. But as these examples show, healthy sexuality is about more than just using contraception and getting tested for STIs. Unfortunately, our culture sends us many negative and harmful messages about sex, but good sex ed can help inoculate kids and teens against them.

About the Author
Miri Mogilevsky is a progressive feminist atheist and a recently transplanted New Yorker. She has a B.A. in psychology and is currently working on a Masters in social work. After that, she hopes to pursue a career that combines activism with counseling. When not doing school things, Miri spends her time reading and writing about social justice, mental health, sexuality, and politics. Occasionally she also interacts with people and sleeps. A few of her other interests include Russian literature, photography, and Cheez-its. In addition, she enjoys asking people about their feelings.