That's a Wrap

I knew I'd blog today, for today is my last blogging day. I didn't know what exactly I'd blog about though. I knew before class that I wanted to do a reflection but considered foregoing it to put in my $0.02 (so much less than a paradigms) about philias or prostitution. I think I'll go with the reflection, and if I'm still wired after the film lab and a quarter of Tom Brady's handywork then I will think about tapping out one...last...blog.

Anyway, thank you for reading that. Here's the meat:

Here we are at the end of Family Studies 322, and how quickly it went by! I am sure, however, that if I were to list out everything that I learned in this class that I would be surprised at how bountiful it was. I flipped through my notes and found that there is a lot of trivial knowledge in them, but also a lot of ...other stuff (a better term evades me).

One of the biggest things that I learned in this class wasn't something that we specifically studied but rather an undertone to the entire course: people's views on human sexuality are like snowflakes - no two exactly the same. Sometimes it could be slightly surprising at how firmly rooted other people (or myself) could be in their views and opinions. I never found this frustrating, I found it quite enlightening. We can consider this to be just another course to get through en route to our degrees, but it was in fact a very unique opportunity - the opportunity to explore and discuss the world of human sexuality with 40 other people. It was a first hand reminder that we are all different products of different environments (because we construct our own, of course). This is just such an important concept to be in touch with as a teacher, and not just for human sexuality but for everything I might face as an educator. We always say "everyone is unique," but this course really brought that sentiment to life for me. 

If I had to pick a topic out of my notes which I found the most intriguing, then I would have to go with sexual education itself. I'm really excited to see the state of sexual education in the curriculum when I enter the workforce; that, or really scared. Talking about sex ed. in class (and blogging about it too) helped me to realize how influential sexuality is in a person's life, and how skewed the information distribution is within it (ie. from advertisements, programming etc. vs. parents, teachers, peers). I also see how all things love & sex is a very tender issue for some, and as such needs to be approached delicately and with efforts made to respect all. 

I can't positively say how all of this will affect me in my future civil discourse, but I'll sure take a stab at it. Habermas' paradigms and components of critical thinking will play a big part in this, as will my discovery of diversity amongst all. I imagine that I will be careful to listen carefully to others, and I will also choose my own words carefully. I will respect that we have all come from different directions, and I will know that agreeing to disagree is a valuable life skill and that battles must be chosen carefully, and I will continue to believe that if something comes to a battle that it is most often not worth fighting at all. (I realize that this may read somewhat vaguely, but I'm trying to say that I generally value the assertive over the passive and the aggressive). 

Bonus

I also saw a slight generation gap unfold before my eyes this term. In a couple of ways, if we consider the generation gaps between the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings, and that between the thirty-somethings and forty-somethings (all numbers rough). I mention the first one because I think a lot of the young(er) ones in the class didn't know who Sue Johanson was, and she taught me an awful lot about sex! I feel bad for them that they didn't have sex talk radio to listen to! The second one is that which exists between you and I, as I seem to have illustrated many of my points with South Park, whereas you have shown preference to Woody Allen and Monty Python, both of whose genius is under-explored, but not lost, on me. Your contraception clip along with the final item in my astronomy class, The Galaxy Song, has piqued my curiosity to the comedic styling of eras prior to my own. Hooray! 

It all comes down to this: We've learned a lot, but we'll always have so much more to learn from each other*.

*everyone, not just you and I...

An Inside Scoop on Homosexuality.

When we started talking about homosexuality back in November I knew that I wanted to do this blog; I just didn't get around to it until now. I've mentioned before that my wife has some friends who are gay, and I certainly consider them friends to me too. These are people she's known since she was very young. She went to school with them through elementary, middle, high school, and even some university with all of them.


Her friends' being gay has had a tremendous impact on not just her life, but even her family's considering that they switched between churches of the same denomination as a result of one church's stance on gay marriage. I asked Amanda a few questions about all of this; here it is...


Tell me about the rally you went to in 2003. 
That was a rally at the legislature building in Edmonton of people who opposed gay marriage. We went to oppose that group, which was maybe 150-200 people strong. It was really emotionally overwhelming and intense; all I could really do was stand there and take it all in.

What made it so intense?
There was a lot of emotion and anger in the air, coming from both directions. I remember that I only spoke up once, but the details are foggy. A non-supporter of gay marriage, a lady, said something about the bible and I said something back about how I'd been taught in church to love other people. It's hard to remember; it was such an emotional experience.


All of your friends had come out before then? 
Yes. And it was not a big deal for me when they did. It was a surprise, but nothing major was made of it. I asked one of my friends how his love life was and he said "well, I've been dating men." It was news to me, but  it wasn't alarming or upsetting at all. Another friend's parents had been asking him since he was in 8th grade if he was gay; so I guess they always kind of knew - they were just waiting for him to recognize it. Jill was the last to come out, probably because her parents would have the hardest time swallowing that idea. Her father looked at it with a doom & gloom business outlook: it would be detrimental to her budding career, and also to his own if people were to find out she was gay. In the end it's all worked out, but everyone's had to deal with things differently.

Where does it all begin?  

At church where they announced that they had been at a senate meeting where it was decided that the church would not support same sex marriage, and I stood up and walked out. I always knew that this was the underlying stance of the pulpit, but when it was publicly announced it felt like it was thrown in my face. I couldn't be a part of an organization that wouldn't accept my friends, especially considering that this organization was a religion.

This was the start of your family leaving that church?
Yes. Our parents wanted us to go to church. They never forced us, but they wanted us to want to go. My taking issue with the church's stance on gay marriage sparked their decision to move from one (Lutheran) church to another, which was a huge shake-up. They left a lot of their friends behind at that church, and a lot of people saw our family as believing that particular church wasn't good enough for them, and yet another one was. The important friendships have prevailed in the end.

What about the new church? 
This church belongs to a different senate who takes a much more 'do whatever you want' stance on things. They're okay with female pastors, for instance, where the old church still is not. They don't necessarily promote gay rights, but they certainly aren't vocally opposed to them either.

Where is everyone at in all of this now? 
It's all about putting yourself in an environment where you're comfortable. I (we) don't attend church regularly, but I told my parents I was never going to go back to that first church; it was important to them that they are in a church where if we (myself and my siblings) choose to go with them, we're comfortable; and they are.
They guys have done well for themselves by putting themselves in communities such as Toronto and Seattle where gay culture is flourishing and a lot more accepted among the masses. Jill is in a situation at her firm where she is still figuring out if her higher-uppers are okay with her lifestyle or not, therefore she mostly keeps quiet about it. It goes to show that coming out isn't an event, but a process. It's different for everyone.

Thanks!!


I've heard most of this before from Amanda, but it was informative for me to sit down with her and put the whole puzzle together. I feel very fortunate to have Amanda as a sort of 'link' to gay society. Just through luck of the draw I don't have any direct friends who are gay, and while I don't see gay friends as a novelty in life, I do consider them a blessing. I'm thinking about how the course of one's life can be altered so drastically in terms of who we surround ourselves with and how those people influence our thoughts and opinions, and I'm simply thankful that one way or another I've not ended up being a part of the population of people who are intolerant toward homosexuality. Of course I recognize that it comes down to me in the end, but outside influences aren't a factor to be ignored.
Why would anyone prefer to be at legislature rallying against gay marriage than cluckin' it up at Buddy's downtown is 20 Astronomical Units (that's a long way) beyond me!

Sexual Education? Pt. 2

The curriculum may be slightly misleading in the depth of content with which it describes its courses. I actually don't even remember taking a sexual education unit in CALM. What I do remember from high school is physical education in grades 9 and 10 - we were already split up into males and females for that class, so taking us into a classroom for a few days to teach us some sexual anatomy and self-examination techniques was a cinch! I recall no question boxes or open discussions about all things sex; I just remember a couple of  sessions on anatomy.
If I reach further back I can remember that grades 5-8 were a simple anonymous question box approach (we were also split between the sexes, of course). We would write something on paper, put it in the box, and the teacher would pull them out one at a time and discuss.
Now that I think about it, my life of sexual education was backwards. Shouldn't I have learned anatomy earlier and been given the opportunity to ask any question I wanted when I was in high school? I don't need to know how to put a condom on when I'm 10 years old, and by the time I'm in grade 10 I've got the picture of what a penis is and what it's capable of doing.
What about the idea that CALM is a course which is most often taken in the 10th or 11th grade? These students get a quick overview of human sexuality and then they are ushered out the door to figure things out for themselves? Agh!! This is the age when teenagers would likely prosper most from a little guidance in the world of sexuality, and yet we do away with the topic so briskly. Teachers are left hoping that the parents will fill in the blanks, all the while the parents hope that the teachers have covered it all and their children won't make any sexual foibles in life. (I admit it, I oversimplified! But I think you know what I mean...)

All of this has me thinking about how I will handle things when I'm a teacher, and unfortunately the answer is that I will handle it as I am told to handle it. This, like abortion, is a tricky issue where lines need to be drawn in a case of 'agreeing to disagree.' 29 students in a classroom may all have parents at home who are hoping that their children will discuss many issues of human sexuality in deep range, but it takes only one student whose parents feel that human sexuality has no place in the schools to cause problems for a lot of people. I don't want to be the guy to spark that dynamite.

I personally believe that human sexuality should be more than a 1 week unit in a health course. Sex is a huge part of our lives, both as individuals and as a whole society. Considering this, it is pretty astounding that it is such a suppressed topic in our education system. The solution as I see it is to have a course not so unlike this one, this family studies course, which presents issues in a safe environment and puts them on the table for discussion. It does not emphasize the memorization of facts or claim any issue to be right or wrong, it just opens them up to interpretation. Just giving kids an opportunity to talk about sex would do two things (as I see it):
1. Provide awareness and education about human sexuality
2. Lift the taboo mindset from discussions involving anything 'sex'

I listened to Sue Johanson religiously when I was in middle school and high school, and I think that it had very Kinsey-esque implications for me in that it carried out the above two points. I don't think Z99 or any radio station in town runs Sue Johanson on Sunday nights anymore (in fact I don't even know if she does a radio show anymore), so I can only wonder where kids learn anything about their sexuality anymore.

I feel as though I've just typed my way through two blogs which seem to explore the ins and outs of teaching sexuality in schools, but I must not forget the role of the parents in all of this. Considering my stance that human sexuality should not be a unit, but a constant and ongoing discussion - human sexuality education can be expected of schools, but cannot be depended on! As early as a child learns to talk should they be properly educated about parts of their bodies (pee pees and wee wees just won't cut it anymore). A child may be only 4 or 5 years old, perhaps less or more, when they discover that their genitals serve them as pleasure devices aside from just performers of other bodily functions. Is it in fact reasonable for parents to brush this aside and wait for 10 years in hope that the school system will fill in the blanks for them? Of course not!! Parents are absolutely responsible for explaining and exploring these concepts with their children in their contribution to the sexual education of the world's next generation.

In the end I do believe that sex should not be a taboo subject, but unfortunately it will be a tedious process to make it otherwise. I would love to see human sexuality as a course in schools, in which open discussion and theoretical exploration is encouraged, but this will be a process, not an instant change, if it is to be at all. Until we reach a point such as this, we as parents are ultimately responsible for our children's scope of knowledge regarding sexuality. Of course, even if sexual education were a thoroughly covered topic in schools, the kids don't get to school until they're 6 years old. That seems like a pretty long time to go without knowing anything about sex.

It looks like this one ultimately falls into the hands of the parents; their childrens' sexual education will have to start with them. Everything starts with parents...

Sexual Education? Pt.1

How it Came to This (3:25-4:28)

I originally had this video (above)  linked in a different post, but it was just way too relevant not to put it here. I like it for what it is: a bunch of parents in an uproar about how their kids don't know anything about sex, and they need to be taught ... by the schools. The entire episode is brilliant. As a budding teacher, I just might have to include it on my top 5 list of South Park episodes (Up to your neck in blog marking? Take a break! Grab a coffee! Watch South Park!), especially now that we've spent a day or two talking about sexual education.

I needed to do a spot of research before I could write this blog; I pulled up Alberta's curriculum to see what I could find by the way of sexual education within it. Disregarding the K-9 curriculum, here is what I found in the 10-12:

For students who are not at the age of majority or living
independently, parents have the right to exempt their children from
school instruction in human sexuality education by submitting a
letter to the school indicating their intention to do so. Schools will
provide alternative learning experiences for those students who
have been exempted from human sexuality instruction at the
request of their parents. Students must complete the remainder of
the course in order to receive credits.

That's it!

This was a highlighted portion of text under the Career and Life Management (CALM) course which offered no particulars whatsoever about the extent of human sexuality taught in the class. Just to sum up this point, the description of CALM focuses on life choices. Below the description is a notice that a parent may exempt their child from the human sexuality unit in CALM if they choose. This is the only evidence of any human sexuality taught in Alberta's high school, at least in the parent's version of the curriculum it is.

So for those of us who wish to say "I might be ok with human sexuality being taught in school; what exactly will be taught?", we will have to dig a little deeper.

This concludes Part 1.

More Critical Thinking

On the weekend, my wife and I were talking about whether or not certain forms of contraception, one of them being abortion, were unethical. When speaking specifically about abortion, it occurred to us that we cannot even really call abortion a contraceptive!
Contraceptive is defined (by dictionary.com) as tending or serving to prevent conception or impregnation.
Abortion can do a lot of things to people but it sure can't do that! No wonder abortion appears as a jumbo jet in bay #1 of the bus depot that is contraceptive ethics - it has no business being there!

Upon noticing this discrepancy I realized that I had overlooked a cardinal principle of critical thinking: examine definitions of terms. This made me think that I should review my principles of critical thinking, as they're rather essential in so many of these discussions you see before you on your screen. Alas! Monday's class yielded a most pointed review of the principles of critical thinking! Isn't that something?!

Still yet did the cogs in my brain rotate as I tied critical thinking to my writer's block concerning our most fruitful topic of masturbation. Why, I would constantly ask myself, can I not think of a decent approach to a blog about masturbation? Such a massive, hard, throbbing, myotonic, vasocongested bombshell of a topic! And I've got nothing! Where do I start? Where do I end?
But when I considered how heartily masturbation fits into all of the principles of critical thinking, such as how so many points of view are assumed, fuzzily defined, oversimplified, overgeneralized or not-so-carefully considered, it became clear to me what a critical issue I was dealing with!
Perhaps masturbation was one of those ideas ... one of those ideas which is not so unlike a roommate: sometimes you need to move away from it before it drives you crazy.

So remember: always examine the definition of terms, or you'll end up debating the wrong topic altogether.

A Contraceptive Can of Worms

The question asked is: Are there some methods of contraception which are morally and ethically unacceptable to me? Which ones? Why?
My answer in its most boiled-down form is that there are not. As I understand it (in my own unique way) all contraceptive devices strive to fend off pregnancy. In a fair lot of cases this is the result of responsible decision making by consenting adults who want to engage in intercourse which is their business alone and nobody else's.

I won't engage in a painfully hair-splitting argument about if 'contraceptive method A' is more or less ethical than 'contraceptive method B.' Until we, the inhabitants of earth, are having sex only for reproductive purposes (don't hold your breath), contraception of any sort has my approval. Let me tell you why...
We often have a tendency to wear blinders when tackling an issue such as this one. We look at things from our own perspectives and base our beliefs in our own experiences. When we do this we forget that other people are subject to different circumstances. We may for one reason or another believe that condoms and 'the pill' are the most obvious and acceptable forms of birth control, and that someone who would use an intrusive IUD device is off her rocker. But that person uses her IUD for her own reasons: perhaps her sister gave it to her and it's all she's ever known; or she is allergic to most condoms; or she gained 40 pounds during those 3 months she was on the pill.
My bottom line here: different strokes for different people - often for reasons we may never have guessed! I exclaim that it is ludicrous to find some contraceptive methods ok and others not.

But what about abortion as a birth control method, as we discussed in class? Well, here's the thing about that. I believe if someone is using abortion as contraception that the problem of  her choice of contraception is the least of her (and our) concerns. Considering the physical and emotional trauma that is endured with each procedure, not to mention the hassle and logistics of moving from the beginning to the end of the process, the woman who chooses to frequent the abortion needs far more help from functional society than simply being handed a condom.

I'd like to weigh in on abortion as abortion, as opposed to abortion as contraception. Abortion is obviously a very controversial topic and it is often debated as to whether or not it is right or wrong. I understand this, as these finite labels (right and wrong) each come from strong camps:
"life is life, to end it is murder"
"a woman ultimately has the right to do what she wants with her body"
...but so many cases fall in between these two extremes; the decision to abort a pregnancy just isn't as simple as 'right or wrong.' I won't even cite examples. What I will say is that I personally could approve of 'abortion A' and disapprove of 'abortion B,' and I'm very comfortable in that standpoint. Each abortion is unique and encompasses its own set of circumstances, often circumstances with which we are utterly unfamiliar with, and we as a whole group of people have no right to label the procedure of abortion 'right' or 'wrong.'

The final question on Friday was 'do I believe that my views on contraception are consistent with those from my socio-cultural background?'
I must say that they are, because I am a product of my environment after all. I did not grow up going to church, and I did not have a lot of rigid beliefs pressed into me from my parents - not on the contraceptive front, anyway.
My parents actually ran a business whose bread and butter was sex toy parties, for lack of a better one-off description. They supplied consultants, women all over B.C, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, with products which were meant to enhance sexual relationships and individuals' sexual pleasure. These products were sold in a most trendy and comfortable setting: someone's house. It's like a tupperware party; you know what I'm talking about...
This fact alone tells me a lot about where my liberal views on sexuality come from. My parents never sat me down and explicitly told me so, but they believed that sexuality is a wonderful thing which should be explored and embraced, and I'm thankful for that.

If you'd asked me before class on November 12 if contraceptives were controversial, I'd have quickly said no. This conversation came up because indeed it is a debatable issue, and a prime catalyst of this is the Roman Catholic Church. How could I have forgotten about the Catholics!? They were the butt of the joke in the Monty Python clip we watched to lead into our discussion of contraceptives, and for reasons I've already listed, I think that their stance on contraception is absurd.This is a long blog though, so I will leave you with the clip below, which nicely summarizes my thoughts regarding the stance of the Catholic church on contraception and, well, everything else.

The New Pope  (Cue at 5:30)

(I actually feel that I owe you some context for this clip. Basically, it was through a series of events not so unlike that of 'The Da Vinci Code' that the discovery was made that Jesus had actually assigned the original position of 'Pope' to a rabbit. After this slight mishap in the Catholic tradition was rectified is when this clip begins.)

Homo This & Homo That

It would seem that homosexuality and homophobia are quite the hot-button topics; we barely got through half of the material which we set out to cover in this afternoon's class. Monty Python's miraculous child-birth will just have to wait until Wednesday.

We talked a lot today about why it is that men are more homophobic than women, and the main point that I take away is that men are just more insecure about their gender. Somewhere along the line it has been programmed into us that it is quite compromising to our manliness to acquaint ourselves with homosexuality in any way.

An idea came up today that suggested that there is correlation between a man's circumstances in life and his securities (or insecurities of course) with homosexuality. That's obvious enough, so let's break it down a little further. I'll just use myself as an example.

A couple of years ago my wife and I went to a party in Edmonton; however, this was no ordinary party. It was a Madonna party! The idea was that all attendants would dress up as Madonna in one form or another (there is no shortage of opportunities here; I went with the cone-bra motif myself).

Important Contextual Paragraph: 
Amanda, my wife, brought with her a social circle wherein the majority of its members are homosexual. These are the people who throw Madonna parties. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they worship Madonna. Anyway, these are great people who we both went to high school with, and Amanda went to school with them from elementary through university. Moving on...

As I'm sure many Madonna themed parties do, this party ended up at a gay bar. Tres fun! What a pleasant, non-threatening environment to down some cocktails and dance on some speakers (and in cages at this particular venue)! The highlights of my evening were twofold: when that guy pinched my ass, and when we were politely asked by that nice man in the shiny red dress to vacate the photo booth (so that he could use it for photos). I was very proud to have been an object of interest to the member of the gay community, and I'm pretty sure Amanda was proud of me too.

What this all funnels down to is that a lot of men might not feel comfortable:
a) attending a Madonna party with a gay crowd
b) taking the party to a gay oriented nightclub
c) being the passing object of interest to some other guy
d) exchanging dialogue in any capacity with a transvestite

...and yet I come out of this with the simple conclusion that some men like men, and some men like women, and some women like women, and some men dress like women (and so on and so forth), and we can all be friends!

So back to the idea that our comfort with ourselves has anything to do with our homophobia levels - Yeah, they have everything to do with one another! By feeling comfortable with myself, who I am, who I'm with, what my relationship is and so on, I do not feel threatened by people who have a different sexual orientation than myself. The bottom line is that I can be around gay people and still maintain my sense of self, and it seems that the problem of homophobia is rooted in some far-off belief that by allowing homosexuals to exist, let alone be in close proximity to a heterosexual, that heterosexuality is in some way threatened.

It would prove very interesting to hear the reasons of different people who are outwardly homophobic as to why they are that way. It is my opinion that there are some brick walls within their logic that they are not able to move past, and that they cannot fully justify what their issue with other people being homosexual is.

Ultimately, I find it very peculiar that so many of us believe that acceptance and equality of other people would solve a lot of the world's problems, but at the same time we have differing parameters regarding who should be accepted and treated equally.