Planned Parenthood Explains Consent

The Ongoing-Yet-Completely-Curable Epidemic

By Youth Health Promoter Omiyea Stanford

Omiyea Stanford

Did you know that one out of every four teens becomes pregnant at least once before age 20? Did you know that despite a dramatic decline in teen birth rates and teen pregnancy, the United States still has one of the highest teen birth and pregnancy rates in the industrialized world? Do you know why? Well there are a mess load of reasons, but, a lack evidence-based sex education plays a huge part. Discuss, dissect, and digress? Yes we shall.

A lack of Evidence Based Programming (EBP), is an enormous part of the problem. Abstinence Only Education (AOE), EBP’s bitter enemy and arch nemesis that just won't die, is still used in classrooms across the country. There are so many reasons why AOE programming doesn’t work, including its misogynistic foundations and messages, idealism of heterosexual marriage, sex and gender bias and oppression, lack of consistency in teaching even the most basic aspects of sexual health like anatomy and reproduction, and lack of regulation of information accuracy and bias. However, one of the most prominent problems, is that it is just plain unrealistic! It’s not enough to offer one solution, especially one where the only answer is to do nothing, which is completely impractical and futile. Sex and sexual stimulation are basic human wants and needs, and AOE teachings disregard and create shame around that fact. AOE teachings leave students who become sexually active as teens with zero knowledge of how to protect themselves. EBP, however, works a little bit differently. Ok, actually, it works a lot differently. 

Evidence Based Programming (EBP) teaches that abstinence is an option, but not the only option. EBP prepares students for any path they choose by providing them with accurate, inclusive, and unbiased information that spans every aspect of sexual health, sexual safety and responsibility, and even the aspects of healthy relationships. Despite the facts indicating that EBP is effective in reducing teen pregnancy and STD/HIV rates, it is still is meet with googolplexes of opposition. A common critique, is that if you teach kids about sex, then they will be more likely to have sex. My reply is, "and?"  Firstly, EBP obviously doesn't encourage and teach kids how to have sex. It teaches them what sex is, and how to be safe if/when they have it. Come on people, that one was a given. Secondly, why do adults feel like it is their solemn duty to keep teens from being sexually active? That’s half of the problem in the nutshell! Teens having sex isn’t the issue! That isn’t what we should be trying our very hardest to prevent. It’s ignorance! This urge in adults to stop teens from becoming sexually active is more about keeping teens “innocent” then it is about keeping them safe. Leave them in the dark and hurl a “just don’t do it” at them every time sex comes up, and I guarantee you they’ll be defenseless. Make sure that they are given the information they need about all the aspects of sexual health, and they will have the ability to make informed, safe and healthy decisions about their own sexual health based on what they want for themselves. Sounds like EBP is our cure-all right? Well, not exactly. There is still something vital to sexual health education that is missing from even the EBP curriculum. And what is that? Pleasure and sex positivity! 

Obviously sex isn’t just about reproduction. If it was we’d barely do it, and we’d probably have a lot less humans on earth than we currently do. Humans are one of the very few species of animals on earth that have sex for fun. If this is true, then why is it that pleasure and sex positivity are missing from EBP curricula in our classrooms? Even with EBP, information about sexual health is given in sex negative ways; in other words, sex is only ever really talked about as it relates to anatomy, reproduction, and preventing the negative consequences. The topic of pleasure is treated similarly. This is an extension of our inability to accept and acknowledge true human sexuality and sexual nature. Pleasure positive sex education curricula really means not disconnecting pleasure and positivity from sex. It’s all a matter of keeping a balance between teaching young people that, yes, sex can be dangerous and it can have very serious consequences, but it can also be fun, pleasurable, satisfying, and enjoyable as well. Sex and pleasure positive EBP would provide the information young adults need to be safe, and dispel shame around sexual desire. Four words: two birds, one stone. 

Fellow YHP Blinky Lawrence
making his voice heard

And now for the big question: what do we do? Education is an enormous factor in the teen pregnancy epidemic, but in the larger scheme of things, our issues with sex education is just a symptom of a bigger issue. Our culture and society’s lack of ability to accept and acknowledge true human sexuality and nature is not a problem that can be repaired overnight, and as an extension, neither will the teen pregnancy epidemic. Want to know how you can do your part? Be an advocate for sex positive EBP education! If you’re a parent, make sure your kids are informed. If their school won’t teach them, you teach them. Teens; fight for your right to be educated! Get the right information from anywhere you can. Fight for sex positive EBP in your schools and communities. Last but not least: spread the word. A huge part of why the teen pregnancy epidemic is an epidemic at all is that people don’t know what they’re up against. So get the real numbers and statistics, and put the information into circulation in and around your communities. 

May is National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month, but efforts shouldn’t end after May 31. Be an advocate 365 days a year! The teen pregnancy epidemic is an incredibly large issue to tackle, but it’s the small efforts of individuals that will bring it down to size. So go ahead people-- get out there and knock this epidemic down a peg or ten.

Letter to the Editor: Prevention starts with conversation

By Letters to the editor on April 26, 2016 at 3:31 AM - Reprinted from the Albany Times Union.

Most people have ideas about what sexual assault looks like. Two strangers, physical force, male perpetrator and female victim.

But this isn’t reality. Sexual assault takes on countless forms of verbal, physical or mental abuse, from vicious shaming to the slightest touch.

Anyone can be a victim or a perpetrator, be they male, female or intersex, friend, foe, acquaintance or stranger. It is sexual assault anytime one receives sexual contact or attention of any kind without having given consent to receive it.

Part of the reason sexual assault plagues us is that we put more focus into teaching our kids to abstain from sex than we do teaching them how to be healthy, safe and responsible when they become sexually active.

Consent is an immeasurable part of sexual health, safety and responsibility. It’s lack of knowledge of, and respect for, consent that is the issue in the case of sexual assault.

Without proper understanding of consent, our young adults are vulnerable to either being sexually assaulted, or sexually assaulting another person.

It’s time we learn that sexual assault isn’t a rarity that affects certain people. It happens every day in countless ways, and many of us cannot recognize sexual assault when we see, or even inflict it.

Change is long overdue. We are Planned Parenthood, and we are taking a stand. It’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and it’s time to spread the word.

Prevention starts with having the conversation about consent.

Omiyea Stanford

Youth Health Promoter, Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood

Albany

Study: teens who live near a Planned Parenthood are less likely to drop out of high school

From UHPP CEO, Chelly Hegan:

"We have had so many conversations over the past few years (maybe more), about the relevance of Planned Parenthood and why what we do is so different than what FQHCs [Federally Qualified Health Centers] have to offer...This article from Vox referring to an even larger article from the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology focuses on this very question."

Highlights from the Vox article include:

Teenage girls who live near a Planned Parenthood clinic are 16 percent less likely to drop out of high school, a new study finds. 

Lots of studies have found that teen moms are significantly less likely to graduate from high school than non-parents; 30 percent of female dropouts cite "pregnancy" and "parenthood" as key reasons for discontinuing their education. 

This new research, published Wednesday in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, looked at both Planned Parenthoods that provide abortions and those that do not. And it found that in either case, living close to one (within a neighborhood of 100,000 people) was associated with fewer female high school dropouts.

 The full study is here in abstract:

OBJECTIVE: To assess whether geographic access to family planning services is associated with a reduced female high school dropout rate. 

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study. We merged the location of Planned Parenthood and Title X clinics with microdata from the 2012-2013 American Community Surveys. The association between female high school dropout rates and local clinic access was assessed using nearest-neighbor matching estimation. Models included various covariates to account for sociodemographic differences across communities and male high school dropout rates to account for unmeasured community characteristics affecting educational outcomes. 

RESULTS: Our sample included 284,910 16- to 22-year-old females. The presence of a Planned Parenthood clinic was associated with a decrease (4.08% compared with 4.83%; relative risk ratio 0.84, P<.001) in female high school dropout rates. This association was consistent across several model specifications. The presence of a Title X clinic was associated with a decrease (4.79% compared with 5.07%; relative risk ratio 0.94, P=.03) in female high school dropout rates, an association that did not remain significant across model specifications. 

CONCLUSION: Local access to Planned Parenthood is associated with lower high school dropout rates in young women. 

(C) 2016 by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

There you have it. Just one more item to add to the growing list of reasons why having a Planned Parenthood health center is beneficial to your community!

Don't Ask, Don't Tell; Stop Repeating the Cycle-- It's Not Helpful!

Hello my fellow Planned Parenthood people! Its Omiyea here sharing thoughts and ideas about “The Talk” with you, and how to make it a little less terrifying and a lot more productive.

DON'T ASK. DON'T TELL. STOP REPEATING THE CYCLE. IT’S NOT HELPFUL.

In what world has allowing the blind to lead the blind ever worked? In other words, what’s the point in letting a big cycle of confusion go on, and on, when you can just end it? We’re talking about the cycle of Don't Ask, Don't Tell when it comes to conversations about sexual health in the home. How does it go? Just like this: a teen’s body starts changing, or has changed, and they become sexually aware. New things are open to them and they need answers. Teens Don’t Ask their parents to explain anything because it’s way too weird and awkward to talk to them about this stuff. Or maybe it’s because the thought of an adult knowing their thinking about, or having, sex makes them feel gross, or ashamed, or like their doing something wrong.

But it doesn’t just stop there. Teens Don’t Ask but neither do parents. Parents Don’t Ask their teens how they are feeling or if they need to know anything for fear of the inevitable, which is that they actually need and want to know things. It’s hard, and understandably so, for parents to come to terms with their kids entering a mature part of life when they believe their kids minds aren’t necessarily mature enough to handle it. Not to mention they might feel like its way to weird a conversation to have. That’s right parents, we know it’s weird for you too.

For a lot of people it’s nearly impossible to allow their minds to put the innocent vision of their kids together with the explicit realities of the sexual realm. Some parents out there may have the “not my angel” mentality, which basically puts their teens up on a pedestal or believe that they can do no wrong. Thinking like this in terms of sex makes goodness synonymous with sexual inactivity, and paints being sexually active and being bad as evil twins.

Along with all this, it could just be your personal views and experience as a teen that keep you from talking about sex with your kids. For example if a parent strongly believes that sex should only take place on ones wedding night, then it would make sense in a lot of ways to not feel obligated to talk to your kids about sex and their bodies until hmm… they get engaged? The same could be said for your beliefs about the appropriate ages for sex; you may feel that because your kid hasn’t reached this magic number in your head that you don’t have to talk to them about the subject.

Any-who, after all this non-asking, then comes the inevitable and very silent Mr. Don’t Tell. Teens Don’t Tell their parents they need answers, and parents don’t exactly volunteer information. Teens are experiencing new emotions and sometimes finding themselves in very peculiar situations. But because they are concerned of feeling judged, embarrassed and disappointing they hold it in. Parents Don’t Tell their kids that what they are experiencing is a normal part of life. Stayed tuned next week when I discuss YOU DON’T KNOW, UNTIL YOU KNOW!

Ignoring it, muting it, and stalling it to no avail. Stop it, do you hear me? STOP IT RIGHT NOW!

Please enjoy another educational installment from our Youth Health Promoter series!  Please check out our first installment on legal consent vs parental consent here.

I am Omiyea, a Youth Health Promoter at Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood in Albany, and I have been given the opportunity to talk to you about the "big conversation”. I will try my best to give you some insight from a teen's point of view on many aspects of the matter, in the hopes that sharing my thoughts and ideas with you will help you, help parents, help their kids.

Sit tight because we’ve got a lot to say, and we thank you for being willing to listen. Let’s talk about talking about sex!

Ignoring it, muting it, and stalling it to no avail. Stop it, do you hear me? STOP IT RIGHT NOW!

by Omiyea Stanford

Way too often you will see parents dismiss all logical thought when it comes to the subject of sex and their kids, and don’t get me wrong; it's understandable as to why. Most times parents just want to preserve their child's innocence for as long as possible and protect them from the not so pretty realities of life-- which is fine. What’s NOT fine though is using this type of blind protective thinking as a guide in place of common sense reasoning, real facts, and straight forward honesty to deal with your confused, ever-changing, hormonal, and fertile teens. So lesson number one? Stop forcing the innocence of a child onto a physically, mentally, and sexually maturing human being.

A lot of times what you will see happening at home are these three things:  Parents trying to #1: ignore, #2: mute, or #3: stall their child’s budding sexuality. Parents ignore it by choosing not to acknowledge that their teens have changed, or are changing, into sexually able and conscious people. Instead parents continue to treat their teens like oblivious little kids in terms of sexuality and sexual awareness. Parents try to mute it by stringing up a curtain of pure stubborn iron will that keeps out all mention of sex and sexuality period point blank, in the home and any other place it can. Lastly, parents try to stall it by creating an overbearing and unrealistic network of rules, regulations, and morals that completely stomp out the slightest possibility of sex or any other outward display of sexual desire or expression like a stank, all-controlling, giant soul-crushing foot.

All three of these tactics and every other combination in-between works toward one simple and actually reasonable common goal: kids waiting to have sex. Having a mind to push your kids toward waiting is great and lovely-- beautiful even. But defaulting to these infamous three techniques to do it is NOT the way to go. Ok sure, sometimes these tactics work. But even more times they just result in any number, variance, or combination of rebellion, confusion, dishonesty, ignorance, misinformation, fear, and a crippled acceptance of oneself or one’s sexuality. And why? Because all of these tactics fail to acknowledge and normalize one common denominator: that sex is a basic human want and need. This is true for the most mature adult, and the most immature teen. To try to take out this one simple fact from the mix of logic behind any strategy put toward curbing the sexual agendas of sexually mature and/or maturing people, will result in either failure or some degree of harm. Let’s go out on a limb and make this an official no-no. As far as focusing on making your kids wait, maybe think about it this way: a lot of times once the mystery is taken out of something, it becomes less desirable. Educate the living day lights out of your teens about sex and sexuality and just maybe they won't be so eager to get things going. Even if this doesn’t work and your teen doesn't choose to wait after all, at least you could rest easy knowing that they know how to protect themselves and proceed safely. Parents? You’re welcome.

Legal Consent V.S Parental Consent

We are venturing into exciting territory here at the blog!  We are going to launch a series of entries by our Youth Health Promoters.  We are so proud of our educators and what they do for the community all around the Capital District.  So without further ado, please enjoy this enlightening post by our own Blinky Lawrence.

Legal Consent VS Parental Consent

By Blinky Lawrence

Blinky wants to teach you a thing.

In New York, the age of consent for sex is 17 years old. This applies to men and women, and applies to both heterosexual and same sex conduct. But as statistics show us, we know people are having sex before 17 years old. Not only are they having sex, but they are also getting pregnant and getting STDs at a crazy high rate. According to the CDC there were 12,733 births to women 19 years of age or younger in 2012, with 29 percent of this group aged 17 or younger. Statistics show nearly two out of three cases of chlamydia are among youth ages 15-24 and one out of three are aged 15-19.

We all understand why we have laws around consent, and the importance of them, but we all also know that they are nearly impossible to enforce in some cases. It is in my personal opinion that when it comes to the age of sexual consent that this is something that should be negotiated between teens and their parents or guardians (if they are under 18 and being cared for by an adult). I trust that by having a real conversation between the two, teens and parents can come up with a time or age they think is appropriate based on how they feel, and not a law.

I think it really should be up to the person that will be having sex to decide when or what age they are ready, without laws or pressure from other people telling them what to do. As a young adult I know I would rather have a talk with parents than feel like I’m breaking a law. I think instead of being so focused on the law we should focus on getting teens the information they need to make smart and healthy choices. You know-- like UHPP Youth Health promoters do every day.

!!SO LETS TALK ABOUT SEX!!

For more information on the Youth Health Educator program at UHPP, please call 518-434-5678 x 139 or email yhp@uhpp.org

Hilarious Video Showcases How Clueless We Can Be About Sex

The folks at CollegeHumor put together a fun video highlighting how clueless people can be when they're younger, even right up to their first sexual experience.  Don't leave your kids in the dark, parents.  TALK TO YOUR KIDS!

Let's Talk About Sex!

This Wednesday, May 7 at 7pm, Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood is hosting a film screening of Let's Talk About Sex. I have had the pleasure of seeing this film, and it really is illuminating. Of course, I personally find the subject matter fascinating, having always had an interest in how sexuality is approached in different cultures, and my continued bafflement of how it is regarded in many aspects of American life.  Countless studies have shown that a more direct approach in our dealings with teenagers and sex means that they (duh) have a much better understanding of the subject matter and will be better prepared.  Sounds pretty simple, but so many people simply can't deal with the concept. This film examines the contrast between the rather puritanical approach utilized by many American families, and the more practical method utilized by Europeans.  Which culture has fewer teen pregnancies and instances of STIs? I guess you'll have to check it out.  After the film, which is about an hour long, there will be a panel of experts to engage the audience in a discussion.  Please visit the Facebook event page and/or Eventbrite to find out more and RSVP.

From the Times Union:

"Let's Talk About Sex (The Movie)" is about more than just sex. The film focuses on sex and sexuality in today's society and how those attitudes affect teenagers. Director James Houston talks to teens and families about the subjects, and examines how other nations deal with protecting adolescent sexual health. The movie won the Youth Award at Spain's Mostra de Ciencia e Cinema Festival and was an official selection of the Provincetown International Film Festival. Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood will sponsor a free screening of the film this week. A panel discussion will follow, featuring College of Saint Rose Visiting Professor Ellen Cole, University at Albany Sexuality Educator/Counselor Carol Stenger and Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood President Chelly Hegan. 7 p.m. Wednesday. Free (donations accepted). Spectrum 8 Theatres, 290 Delaware Ave., Albany. 449-8995.

(Note from me: the Times Union write-up did not mention the inclusion of Dyrleif Bjarnadottir on the panel, a member of the UHPP Board of Directors, mother, and European who has been living in the US for quite some time, and has some interesting observations to share about the subject.)

Check out the trailer!

Jezebel: "Teens Bone With or Without Condoms, Say Docs for the Millionth Time"

I have to pimp out this excellent article from Jezebel, because I couldn't have said it better.  Thanks to the good folks at Jezebel for continuing to write about sexual health and education. All the applause to you! 

Take a look:

Teens Bone With or Without Condoms, Say Docs for the Millionth Time
 

 

Seriously, dum-dums, how many times do we have to go over this? Condoms do not cause sexy intercourse any more than seat belts cause car accidents. Adding yet another voice to this "conversation," which has seemingly been raging since the invention of penises, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Adolescence has released a policy statement affirming that America's youngsters need access to free, reliable contraception and comprehensive sex ed. Posthaste. Preferably via their schools.

These so-called "doctors'" endgame? RAMPANT UNDERAGE PERVERT SEXING, OBVIOUSLY. Because it is a well-known statistical fact that the fewer condoms a teen comes into contact with, the fewer babies and STIs they ha—oh. No? That's wishful-thinking garbage talk? And literally, measurably, the opposite of true? HUH.

Read more