(This post was inspired by an informative Facebook post by one of the awesomest Religious Educators in the UU faith movement eva…)

Take a quick look at this video by clicking here. (it’s a 3:22 long). Be prepared to be horrified.

Thing is, this sexuality educator, if that’s what her formal title is, has mad skills at building rapport, using humor, being a little edgy with adolescents but not crossing boundaries. If I were a teenager, I would listen to her instead of zone out.  Or at least multi-task with my phone and her presentation. Despite the purple fringe.

So she has educator-style going on, but her substance is killer. Seriously, killer.  As in killer of respect for women, as in killer of respect for gender equality, as in killer of those kids’ spirits and lives who don’t follow her heteronormative assumptions.

Really? Women can’t bond if they have too many sexual encounters before they decide (if they do) to settle down? But men can?

Plus, she’s carrying around all the DNA from all her past boyfriends ~ and their skin cells to boot. How gross is that? Apparently, she forgot how to bathe after losing her virginity?

And isn’t that just a bit homoerotic for the last guy’s DNA to be bonded to the next guy’s? Better watch out for that possibility.

According to Evie Blad, who wrote this great piece on the state of sex ed in our country, that video clip above reflects a

lesson is part of the W.A.I.T. Training materials created by the Denver-based Center for Relationship Education (W.A.I.T. stands for Why Am I Tempted?). Joneen Mackenzie, a nurse by training and the organization’s founder, said in a phone interview that her team works with focus groups to constantly revise and update its prevention curriculum to make sure it is effectively communicating with teens. The tape illustration is optional for teachers who use W.A.I.T. Training, and it is not intended to promote a sense of shame, Mackenzie said.

This is why Our Whole Lives (OWL) Sexuality Education — the secular or the faith-based version — is so important, is such an important presence in the world. Because sh*t like this is being taught. Whole-heartedly, apparently, and without much sense of balance or self awareness.

OWL is also necessary because of limitations placed on very creative, wonderful sexuality educators who are trying to get around the narrow confines place on them. Watch this and be inspired by the creativity and persistence:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06kT9yfj7QE]

Thank you, Sanford Johnson, for your creativity.  Thank you for not caring if I am using a dress shoe or wearing athletic shoes.  And yes, if I am going to engage in a shoe-related activity, I don’t want any sweat to fall out.  For realz.

I’d like to say that unskillful sexuality education happens in those states that are the usual suspects, the places where politically and religiously conservative energies hold sway over public and education policy. But I just learned from that friend who inspired this post, a respected sexuality educator that even in my very blue state of Massachusetts, there is no requirement for sex ed, for education about HIV, or what sex ed is provided need not be “medically accurate.”

What up with that, MA?