I recently spoke with New York Times writer Amy O’Leary about parents, kids and porn. Porn is easily accessible online, and I’ve blogged in the past (”My Child Viewed Porn: Now What?”) about why a child might seek out porn and what parents or guardians can do when this happens. Porn isn’t going away, so it was great to see that the New York Times chose to cover this issue as well! Check out the articles below to find out more, including some additional advice I shared on five different scenarios in which parents spoke with their children who had stumbled upon online porn.

“How to Talk to Your Kids About Pornography”

“Can Your Child Find Porn on Your Phone?”

“So How Do We Talk About This?”

Author Melissa Harris-Perry, a former professor of political science at Princeton University, is not Margaret Sanger, the legendary reproductive rights champion who established the American Birth Control League (precursor of today’s Planned Parenthood). But to the packed crowd at last Friday’s Spring Benefit Luncheon for the Planned Parenthood Association of the Mercer Area, she was the next best thing.

An outspoken intellectual who received her Ph.D. from Duke University, Harris-Perry hosts her own news show, Melissa Harris-Perry, on MSNBC. She is also a professor of political science at Tulane University and writes a monthly column for The Nation. Her most recent book, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America, received rave reviews.

Although Sanger and Harris-Perry never met, the two would have been soul sisters. Both unapologetically believe that women’s reproductive rights are fundamental to a free society. At the benefit, Harris-Perry spoke about some of the recent assaults on women’s reproductive freedom, including the Personhood Amendment that came before Mississippi voters last November. According to the Huffington Post, had it become law, it would have conveyed all the rights of being a person to a fertilized egg.

Calling it “a step too far,” Harris-Perry said that defeating the amendment was a considerable victory, given the state’s conservative population. But she added that similar amendments have been introduced in at least five other states and may be on the ballot this coming November. This threat to women’s reproductive freedom is still alive and well.

Harris-Perry also spoke about transvaginal ultrasound laws, which require a woman to have a probe inserted in her vagina for an ultrasound before she gets an abortion. The New York Times reports that due to national public pressure, Virginia’s governor did not sign the bill requiring women to have the noxious, invasive procedure, but Harris-Perry said that Governor Rick Perry of Texas had no such hesitation. He signed this intrusive bill in 2011. Texas women in need of abortion services are forced to be vaginally penetrated.

Harris-Perry’s talk covered other national news about women’s reproductive health, including the recent Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood funding controversy. She believes that it damaged the goodwill that had existed between these two women’s health organizations.

She also spoke of her concerns about Planned Parenthood’s funding, which was removed and then reinstated in the battle over the federal budget, and the administration’s decision not to allow the emergency contraception Plan B One-Step to be sold over the counter to young women under 17. She disapproved of President Obama using his own daughters to make the case for his administration’s negative decision.

“It is not your daughter that this decision concerns,” she said about the reason the president gave, “but daughters of others who are not so well-resourced.”

Margaret Sanger would have applauded Harris-Perry’s honest approach to talking about not only women’s reproductive rights, but her own personal history. Harris-Perry spoke about being sexually assaulted by an adult when she was young (”but didn’t tell anyone for a year”).

She also spoke about becoming a mother (to a daughter, Parker), having an abortion and a hysterectomy (that “saved my life”), and her desire to have another child through a surrogate.

Harris-Perry said that she felt comfortable talking about sex because of her mother’s work for an underground abortion railroad that helped women who needed abortions before Roe v. Wade.

Using the same honesty, Harris-Perry said that sexual choices, including her own, can “come with regrets,” and that knowledge should keep women on both sides of the abortion debate from demonizing each other. She added that there are people of “great good conscience on the other side,” and that is why “the law must remain silent” in the debate.

“The right to privacy without infringement of government should be fundamental in our society and should not depend on who is in office,” she said.

Harris-Perry’s words made me realize that political allegiances should melt away in the struggle over abortion. Instead, we need to help all women get the health and sexuality education that they need, particularly in school programs, and work together to make abortion remain safe, legal and rare.

Harris-Perry sees the current battles over women’s reproductive rights more about “shaming women,” than a “war on women”-the terminology used incessantly by politicians and the media. Rather, she believes that women can unite around the idea that “patriarchy is always our enemy,” but not that “men hate women.” Our common goals should be to reduce poverty, racism and gender discrimination. Toward that end, she said that we should help our children (and grandchildren) understand that the two most important actions one takes in life are “brushing your teeth and voting.”

She left the podium on a wave of applause. I left the luncheon thinking that Margaret Sanger can rest in peace. Melissa Harris-Perry is carrying her torch and holding it high.

Recently, I was asked by a reporter to comment on a study titled, “Cash, Cars and Condoms: Economic Factors in Disadvantaged Adolescent Women’s Condom Use.” The purpose of the study was to “evaluate whether adolescent women who received economic benefits from their boyfriends were more likely never to use condoms.” My first question was, “Why is this question even being asked?” As I read the study, my questions grew-as did my dismay at reading this examination of girls’ condom use that asked no questions of the men whose penises would actually be covered by these condoms.

I do not think the reporter expected me to open up the can of evaluative whoop-ass I did on this study, so I wasn’t all that surprised when in the article my prolific rants were condensed down to a benign sentence or two admonishing the greater research community that more research needs to be done. There is much more to say about this new publication by respected researchers that yet again ends up blaming women for their male partners’ sexual behaviors and decision-making.

The researchers, who used data collected from African-American girls and women ages 15 to 21 living in a low-income area (we’ll come back to that in a sec), did indeed conclude that “adolescent women whose boyfriend is their primary source of spending money may not explicitly exchange risky sex for money, but their relationships may be implicitly transactional.”

Well, duh.

Is this conclusion truly publication-worthy? Of COURSE their relationships are transactional-every single relationship is transactional. And it doesn’t matter what one’s socioeconomic status or racial or ethnic background is; it doesn’t matter what the gender(s) of the partners in the relationship are. We all negotiate wants, needs and desires with our partners. We make choices based on what we have and do not have. We communicate well, we communicate poorly-and we make decisions with which some will agree and others will disagree.

The difference here, however, is that what was being examined was whether the male partners of these young women provided them with money. And right there you have a not-so-veiled statement: low-income, African-American girls are whores. Think I’m exaggerating? Just read the key words beneath the article’s abstract, which include “sexual behavior; safe sex; adolescent” and “prostitution.”

What if we took a look at a middle-income, white couple in their early thirties? One partner or spouse works outside of the home, and the other stays at home and raises their 2.5 children. This is a transactional relationship. In a male-female relationship, we will most likely see the male partner playing the breadwinner role and the female partner staying home-although this has been shifting more over the years with more stay-at-home dads. The choice of who will work and who will stay home is a transaction between the partners. It is one that involves and reflects, among other things, each partner’s capacity to earn money. Yet no one would look at the stay-at-home mom in this example who accepts money from her partner to run their home as being “paid” by her spouse, and certainly no one would imply that any stay-at-home mom is a prostitute.

What the results of this study communicate is, “if these poor, African-American adolescents didn’t rely on their boyfriends for money, maybe they’d make better decisions about their sexual health.” This is a useless conclusion in relationships that involve far more complex issues than whether a boyfriend has money or a car. It is an equally useless measurement of safer sex practices, because girls and women do not use latex condoms, their male partners do. But this is far from the only study that examines girls’ use of one of the only male contraceptive and safer sex methods. (”Women’s Condom Use Drops During First Year in College” is slated to be published in the next Journal of Sex Research.) Each study that does this renews the misplaced blame on girls and women for not being stronger in insisting that their male partners use condoms-instead of helping us reaffirm that both partners in a relationship have equal responsibility in determining how best to avoid an STD and/or pregnancy.

“Boys will be boys,” these studies imply. “How can we expect them to make such a difficult decision like using condoms? They think with their penises; they don’t actually have brains.” The messages are as offensive and degrading to boys and men as they are to girls and women. And as long as we continue to hold girls and women responsible for being the sexual and moral gatekeepers in their relationships with men we are putting an unfair burden on women and devaluing the capacity of men to be active participants in their relationships with women.

Those of us who actually work directly with young people know that myriad decisions relating to romantic and sexual relationships are often extremely complex. There are consequences for every single decision we make, some positive and some negative. Girls are socialized from the youngest ages to be in a relationship and then to do everything they can to stay in that relationship-even if it is an unhealthy one. Girls are socialized from the youngest ages to please other people. These are lifelong messages they receive up until the day they find themselves in a sexual relationship with a partner. And at that point, we turn around and wag a judgmental finger at them when they make a choice they have had zero support in making? Even if they have had sexuality education courses, even if they have been with partners who used condoms in the past, each relationship is a new experience. And if a girl’s male partner doesn’t use condoms, perhaps we should be asking him “why not” instead of asking her why she wasn’t able to convince him to do so.

All that has been reinforced here is a judgment against the girls in these relationships that if they only chose better partners-those who, perhaps, didn’t have stronger earning potentials or didn’t have cars-they wouldn’t have made the poor choice to have sex with men who did not wear a condom. We don’t have any learning about how we can more effectively reach boys and young men, how we can help men and women communicate more openly and effectively about safer sex-you know, actually helpful, applicable knowledge. Instead we have statistical significance and other high falutin’ language that doesn’t amount to a whole hill of beans when you’re working with young people.

I know the work of several of the researchers and have long respected them. So I was particularly disappointed to read such a waste of brilliant minds stating the obvious; blatantly reinforcing stereotypes about girls (particularly, African-American girls, particularly African-American girls from lower-income areas); and validating the antiquated notion that we should be measuring how a male-female couple practices safer sex by examining the female partner’s choices and behaviors while completely ignoring the role her male partner plays in these decisions.

Research can be so, so valuable to our work with our service populations-but the time and funding to do meaningful research, particularly program evaluation, is particularly tight today. So to waste these limited resources on a study that reveals absolutely nothing new and provides no additional insight as to how to most effectively serve men and women seeking support and services is an absolute tragedy.

There are few more dramatic, clutch-the-pearls parenting moments than discovering that your child was viewing pornography. It doesn’t matter what your child’s gender is or how shy or outgoing your child is. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve put parental restrictions on your Internet access. Porn is easily accessible today in a variety of formats, and it is very likely that this will happen in your family at some point.

Why might your child have checked out porn? The most common reasons are…

Curiosity - Cultural references to porn are all around us. They are made by teens and adults, on the radio, by recording artists, in sitcoms and in movies. So sometimes kids check out porn because they want to know what it is and what the big deal is about.

Hormones - It’s hard for us to admit, but our children are sexual beings. Once they enter puberty, they are RAGING sexual beings. It’s exactly what’s supposed to be happening, biologically and developmentally. So sometimes, kids go online to check out porn because it turns them on. Sorry. Truth.

Confusion - Adolescents are concrete thinkers who need specific examples. If you describe what a condom is, your adolescent will understand something. If you show your adolescent a condom, allow her or him to actually touch it, your concrete adolescent will understand far more. For some young people, hearing “oral sex is when someone puts their mouth on another person’s genitals for pleasure” isn’t enough. How does that actually happen? Why do people do it? Adolescents go online, see someone performing oral sex and say, “Oh, I get it.”

Parents often ask, “What impact does viewing porn have on children?” There are different viewpoints and a range of research relating to this. Generally speaking, porn does not harm young people. It can, however, misinform and confuse them. Porn is made for adults, not adolescents. It is designed to be a fantasy-and adolescents don’t always get that, because, again, they’re concrete thinkers. What they see is what they get.

So, what do you do if your child has been checking out porn?

Decide who’s going to bring it up. If you are partnered or married, strategize together first for consistency. Then one of you should speak with your child so she or he does not feel ganged up on. Believe me, your child is going to feel embarrassed and defensive, so you need to approach this gently.

Be ready to explain how you know she or he was accessing porn. When it comes to technology, parents are all over the place about whether it’s OK to check their children’s e-mails, texts, etc. If you are a parent who does spot checks, I suggest you let your child know that in advance. Otherwise, while you’re trying to talk with your child about why it’s not OK for her or him to look at porn, she or he will be focused on how and why you violated her or his privacy.

Be ready to have several short conversations. Again, your child is likely to be mortified that you discovered she or he was watching porn. That means you have a limited window in which to talk about it. This also means that you may need to come back to it several times to reinforce what you said the first time, since all they will be able to hear is their own voice in their head saying, “Please let this be over….”

Set boundaries. Remember you are the parent, and as the parent, you are responsible for setting and maintaining rules in your home. After you’ve spoken about why adolescents shouldn’t be viewing porn, you need to clearly explain your expectations moving forward and that, like with any other rules, there will be consequences for breaking them. Effective consequences should happen right after the offense and be related to the offense (e.g., no non-homework computer access for a period of time).

Watch for these warning signs that indicate a problem needing professional help:

Subject matter. If you were to discover that the only images your child was viewing were particularly violent or degrading, you’d need to talk about what she or he saw and to explain clearly that that is not the way people should behave in a sexual relationship. How that conversation goes will determine whether you might want to bring your child to see a therapist to explore the source of their curiosity.

Frequency of viewing. A parent asked me, “If my son says he can’t stop watching porn, is that a problem?” Absolutely. If viewing porn feels like a compulsion, professional intervention is necessary to direct your child away from a behavior that is not healthy to one that is.

Changes in language or behavior. Any dramatic changes in your child’s language or behavior should be noted. (For example, if your previously outgoing child becomes quieter, more secretive, or you hear him or her using more sexualized language with friends or with you). These changes may not necessarily indicate that your child has been viewing porn, but they can. When in doubt, check it out.

Above all, stay calm. Talk with other parents about how they’ve handled this situation with their children. Speak with professionals who have expertise working with children. You are not alone in figuring out how to address this!

“My Child Viewed Porn: Now What?” was originally published by MOMeoMagazine.com.

While the Republican presidential candidates chased each other through the primaries and President Obama embarked on the campaign trail, a recent announcement about sexuality education in America quietly made history.

For the first time ever, educators, local and state board members, and parents have a set of uniform, national sexuality education standards to measure the content of their schools’ programs: The National Sexuality Education Standards. Its goal is “to provide clear, consistent, and straightforward guidance on the essential minimum, core content for sexuality education that is age-appropriate for students in grades K-12.”

Publication of the standards is an important step forward in standardizing, normalizing and improving sex education throughout the nation. If widely implemented, our youths’ well-being, health and academic achievement will improve. Programs modeled after the standards could lower our high rate of teen pregnancy and even higher rate of teen sexual transmitted diseases. Emphasis, of course, is on the “if.” If professional educators, parents and school board members give these standards a fair hearing.

Development of the standards is the result of a two-year effort spearheaded by five prestigious organizations: The American Association of Health Education, The American School Health Association, The National Education Association Health Information Network, The Society of State Leaders of Health and Physical Education and The Future of Sex Education (FoSE) Initiative. (FoSE includes three national sexuality education organizations: Advocates for Youth, Answer and SIECUS.)

These experts believe that “sexual development… [is] a normal, natural, healthy part of human development.” They substitute abstinence-only approaches, which still receive government funding, for a more comprehensive, evidence-based approach.

The standards join a growing body of national standards for other school curricula, such as math, reading and health, which only benefit our national education system. Long after serving on the New Jersey State Board of Education decades ago, I believed that excessive local control of school curricula-particularly sex education- can prevent young people from getting challenging content that prepares them to live in the global village. When it comes to sex education, a small group of parents at the local level can often control the curriculum to a point where students get only limited, often dishonest information.

The standards are based on research-driven evidence and developmentally and age-appropriate norms, yet teaching more than abstinence might be seen as controversial. Some parents, educators and politicians believe that school sexuality education programs should focus only on abstinence and that instruction on contraception can encourage young people to have sex.

However, the experts behind the standards think otherwise. They believe that students in the early grades should learn only about abstinence, but those in grades 6-8 should also learn about the “health benefits, risks and effectiveness rates of various methods of contraception, including… condoms.” By the end of high school, students will review, compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of abstinence and other methods, including condoms.

This is balanced instruction, since about half of all teens today have sex before graduating high school. Students need the whole story about contraception, not just half of it.

Another potentially controversial area might be the treatment of sexual orientation, which is wisely placed in the area of Identity. Instruction begins in grades 3-5, and by the end of fifth grade, students should be able to define “sexual orientation as the romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same or of a different gender.” Many young people already know this definition, since they live with same-sex parents, or know others who have been raised by them.

The topic continues in grades 6-8, so that students “differentiate between gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation.” Then in high school, instruction focuses on students’ ability to “differentiate between biological sex, sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.”

I can see how the possible inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity might cause differences of opinion among parents and educators-but it shouldn’t hold up adoption of the standards. They need not be swallowed whole. Rather, parents and school board members-and older students whose opinions might be extremely valuable-can examine them in a series of community meetings.

Implementation can begin with elements that the majority accepts. The more difficult and potentially controversial issues can be placed on the sidelines for further study and adopted at a later date.

Elimination of certain topics, of course, can be more problematic if a state board of education decided to adopt the standards for all its schools. However, boards not wanting implementation to cause conflicts might suggest that parents can opt out of instruction for a few of the standards that might conflict with their religious or moral views.

But we’re discussing building a floor for sex education with the adoption of these minimal standards. We’re not discussing the ceiling, and there is no time limit imposed on districts to begin adopting the standards. Of course, it won’t take long for many school districts with superior sexuality education programs to do a quick review to see how their programs surpass the standards. Perhaps districts with excellent programs can serve as mentors to districts that must start at the very beginning and adopt the minimal standards.

In the 30 years that I’ve worked in the sexuality education field, nothing as dramatic and important as the creation of the standards has ever occurred. They have the potential to improve and enhance school sexuality education programs across the country. Bravo to everyone involved in their development, and good luck to the parents, educators, and state and local school board members who must now summon their courage and implement them.

I cannot remember the last time I read a book that had me as charged up as Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I am not a big nonfiction fan. I have to read so much of it for work that my home reading time tends to be reserved for escaping into fiction. But a friend whose taste in books I really respect recommended it, and so I tried it. Within the first page, I was hooked.

Hooked may not be the right word: obsessed. Evangelical, even. When I went to the hair salon, I told everyone in the place about the book, and they were riveted. When I was on the recumbent bike at the gym, I’d dog-ear a page and tap the person next to me, who had no choice but to listen to me go off on how amazing not only the book, but also the story itself, were. I couldn’t resist taking any opportunity I could to tell people Henrietta Lacks’ story. As you will read in a moment, the timing is perfect to now share it on the Answer blog.

Changing Medical History

Henrietta Lacks, born in 1920, developed cervical cancer that was diagnosed when she was 31 and then metastasized quickly throughout her body. She was treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital, one of the few hospitals that in those days would provide care to African-American patients. A sample of the cells from her cervix was removed for testing, and she eventually died at John Hopkins.

Back in 1951, there was no law at the time requiring a patient’s consent for the use of body fluids, tissue or organs taken during surgical procedures. As Skloot explains in her book, even the Nuremberg Code, developed after the end of World War II in response to the medical experimentation atrocities committed by Nazi doctors, only provides guidelines for ethical practices when using human subjects in any kind of research. So no one asked Henrietta or her family whether they’d care if some of her cells, including a part of the cancerous tumor growing on her cervix, were removed during surgery and used in research. Yet this disregard for her privacy and rights to self-determination has probably saved more lives than anyone could ever have imagined. The tragedy is that companies have made billions off of replicating her cells, yet neither she nor her family has ever received one cent in compensation.

The unique thing about Ms. Lacks’ cells-commonly known as “HeLa” cells-were that they could survive in a culture solution outside of the body and vigorously replicate on their own. Hopkins researchers had been trying for decades to do this, but the cells all eventually died. Today, sixty-plus years and trillions of replications later, HeLa cells are still alive, having played a key role in the development of the Polio vaccine, medication for Parkinson’s disease and much more. In fact, a solution mixed accidentally with some of her cells allowed scientists to discover the number of human chromosomes, one result of which was the identification of intersex conditions, such as Turner’s and Klinefelter’s Syndromes.

HeLa and the HPV Vaccine

HeLa cells also helped to develop the vaccine for cervical cancer, Gardasil. Cervical cancer is the third most common type of cancer in the world, the greatest defenses against which are a) for girls to be vaccinated (in boys, vaccination combats genital warts), and/or b) for girls and women to have regular Pap tests. When a Pap test is done and irregular cell growth (called “dysplasia”) is discovered on the cervix, this is considered a precancerous condition that is can be treated before cancer develops.

Although there is disagreement about the use of vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that nearly 12,000 new cases of HPV diagnosed each year in the United States could have been prevented by the vaccine. And we wouldn’t even have the option of being immunized were it not for Henrietta Lacks.

Since January is cervical cancer awareness month, I thought it important to remind girls and women to take care of their health, this month and every month. So in honor of cervical cancer awareness month, take action. Read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Visit the Web site for and consider supporting the Henrietta Lacks Foundation. Talk with the girls and women in your life about how to prevent HPV and cervical cancer through regular Pap tests. If you are under the age of 26, or know someone who is, consider the HPV vaccine. And if you choose the latter, please take a moment to remember the egregiously unsung woman of whom only one or two photos have survived. Whether for the HPV vaccine or the many other medications that have been created thanks to her, we owe Henrietta Lacks a great deal.

Over the past few years, greater national attention has been focused on the issue of bullying, mostly because far too many young people who were bullied ended up dying by suicide. Considering that the root of bullying behavior is often found in gender norms and expectations and the targets of bullying are often young people who are or are perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender, sexuality education can and must do a better job of addressing bullying if we are truly committed to making it stop.

A few nights ago, I watched an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, a program in which a family in great need is selected to receive a newly built, customized home. The show introduces us to the family members and shares their stories as we watch the cast create the home and make several other dreams come true for them over the course of a week. This particular episode focused on the family of Carl Walker. Carl was an 11-year-old boy who had been bullied relentlessly by students at his school for such simple things as carrying around library books and enjoying reading. He was called a girl and told he was gay, along with all the terrible epithets that are used to insult people who are or are perceived to be gay. The night Carl’s mother was planning to take him with her to a PTA meeting to address the bullying, Carl went upstairs and hanged himself while she was preparing dinner. Remaining in the home had been understandably traumatizing to the family, but they did not have the option to move. Thanks to the show, the original house was razed, and a new one built that celebrates the life of Carl inside and out, replacing the terrible memory of what happened with peace and hope.

How Sirdeaner Walker, Carl’s mother, and her family have carried on in the wake of this loss is absolutely beyond me. Somehow she, like Judy and Dennis Shepard and other miraculously strong parents, chose to use the tragedy of Carl’s death as an opportunity to reach others. The Walkers are now working with GLSEN on a project called Stand Together. This new Web site asks visitors to take a stand against bullying. Visitors can download and print out a piece of paper with their number on it, take a photograph, and upload it to the site. While watching the show, I checked the site and over 20,000 people had taken the pledge. My son and I took a photograph as one entity; our number is 60,699. As of the writing of this blog, the number is 93,069.

I have to admit, as I was watching this extremely emotional episode, I thought to myself: Will the impact of their work have a continuing effect? We are a fickle culture with a relatively short attention span. How can we work to ensure that the issue of bullying does not become a flash in the pan, today’s social issue topic du jour? I realized that standing together is a good, first, motivating step, but we must do much more.

1. Take the pledge, and then talk about the pledge. Just as talking with children about sexuality is not simply about having “the talk” but a lifelong, ongoing conversation, we must constantly talk about bullying. Reminding friends and family members that we all pledged to do so is a great motivator for keeping focus on the steps we can take to end bullying.

2. Take action that resonates with young people. I have struggled with what I feel is an overly simplistic message to young people: “It gets better.” I love the reassuring motivation behind it, but from a child development standpoint, it’s nowhere near enough. Developmentally, adolescence is a narcissistic time; we have to remember that children who are bullied often feel like they are the only ones who have ever experienced it. We tell them others’ stories, but they are certain that their situation is different-that it is somehow their fault, that no one will believe them, that no one will care. They are concrete thinkers who live in the here and now, so thinking about the future can be challenging for some and impossible for others. And the scary reality is that for some people, it does not get better. We adults have the benefit of knowing things can improve, but young people who are bullied only know the pain they’re experiencing now. So while it’s fine to say, “It’s going to get better,” it is far more effective to accompany that with, “because here’s what we’re going to do to make it better,” and then actually take action. Put together a plan of action; ask a young person to write down her or his story and use it in making your case for the safety of the child and others.

3. Label sexism and homophobia and explain why they are wrong. Children learn from their earliest ages that there are “boy” things and “girl” things and that boys should behave in certain ways and girls in other ways. The social consequences for not adhering to these expectations can range from minor to quite serious. The abhorrent truth is that there remains far more flexibility for a girl to be non-conforming in her behavior (the unspoken lesson in this is that by doing something “boy-like,” she is improving upon herself). Yet every single day, boys are criticized by other boys-and even adults-for acting like girls. And, of course, a boy who acts like a girl must be a gay boy. Parents, educators, religious leaders -every adult-must nip these gendered messages in the bud at the earliest ages. There are times for open discussion: “What do you think of what we just saw on that commercial?” And times to be direct: “I think it’s completely inappropriate that that guy just called his friend a pansy because he wanted to study for a test instead of going out with him.” Strong message, strong impact.

4. Teach young people to act when they see bullying happening. We also need to remember that during adolescence the most important group is a child’s peers. I have heard adults tell adolescents things like, “Why do you care so much what other people think about you?” This confuses and minimizes young people, and I will guarantee you that the answer an adolescent will always give is, “I don’t know.”  That’s because young people honestly don’t know why their peers are so important, all they know is that without fitting in, there are no friends (regardless of whether these friends are the right types of friends). For this reason, we need to spend more time talking with young people about bystander behavior. It is relatively easy to teach a child not to bully others; it is another thing altogether to ask that child to be the whistleblower when someone (especially someone they perceive to be a friend) is bullying another child.

5. Use your “celebrity.” When I use the word “celebrity” here, I mean “influence.” Consider the social influence you do have. You may be well known and respected in your profession; you may be the power parent in your community; you may be an active member of a religious or faith group. If you choose to make a pledge to stop bullying, then pledge to yourself that you will use your influence to focus others on this issue. Post about this issue on Facebook-not once, but regularly. Tweet, post on Tumblr, write a blog-not once, but once a day, once a week, once a month, or with whatever regularity you can. Visit and comment on others’ blogs, and they will do the same in return.

With so much dreck on television, it was phenomenal to watch a program that modeled how the media can and should raise awareness about a life or death social issue like bullying. And it feels good, when we are caught up in the emotional transfer of such a powerful show, to take a picture and sign a pledge. Now we need to do the hard work, and some of it may not feel very good.  Be the parent who brings up this issue at every school board meeting. Be the adult who doesn’t have any children but who notices bullying going on as you pass a playground and says something. Be kinder to people in your own life because children are watching us for cues on how to behave-and because “do as I say, not as I do” doesn’t cut it. Young people need to hear again and again that they should never bully others, that they don’t deserve to be bullied, and that they should always tell an adult if they see bullying taking place so we can make it stop.

Get involved. Stay involved. Make this change happen.

“Putting an End to Bullying: Pledge to More Than Take a Pledge” was originally published by RH Reality Check.

If you’re a parent, you know well that you have many jobs when it comes to your children’s well-being. But did you know that one of these is being your child’s sexuality educator?

Teaching your child about sexuality, in the context of your own family values, is one of the most important jobs you have-yet it is the job parents usually get the least amount of training to do.

The very idea of talking about sexuality tends to raise a myriad of questions for parents: What’s appropriate to say at which ages? Shouldn’t I wait for my child to bring it up? What if I don’t know how to answer my child’s questions?

Relax! There are some basic ways that you can let your children know that you are a safe, “askable” adult-no matter what they might have questions about.

It’s Never Too Early to Start. It’s important to remember that sexuality has to do with far more than “sex.” “Sexuality” is a far-reaching, comprehensive term that encompasses everything from physical anatomy to understanding how to treat people with respect to learning how pregnancy happens and much, much more.

When you understand this, you know that children are receiving messages about sexuality from the day they are born-from the words people use around them to describe their body parts to messages they get from family, peers and the media about how they are supposed to behave based on their assigned gender. The longer you wait to talk with your child, the more you are competing with what they’re hearing all around them.

The important phrase here is “age-appropriate”-what your child needs to know as a kindergartener is much different from what she or he needs to know in high school. Start early, start slowly-and if you’re unsure, reach out for some guidance.

It’s Never Too Late to Start. If you are the parent of an adolescent and you haven’t yet started talking with your child, you didn’t miss the proverbial boat. Start now and keep talking.

As your children get older, they will need to know new information with each passing year and be faced with making decisions about relationships and shared sexual behaviors. Your guidance will be imperative throughout their adolescent years.

Try to put the idea of having “the” talk out of your mind. You need to talk early and often!

Take Small Bites. You don’t need to cover absolutely everything in one conversation with your child. It will overwhelm you as much as it will your child!

Look for teachable moments: watch television with your child and mute the television during commercials to discuss something you’ve just seen.

Take advantage of car rides to and from school and other activities. This is a non-threatening place to have discussions about sexuality and other important topics.

Talk With Your Partner or Spouse About Your Values. If you are married or in a relationship, make sure that you and your spouse or partner talk about your values and beliefs relating to sexuality so that if you have individual conversations with your child, the messages you are giving are consistent.

Be sure to deal with any differences you may have in your opinions and values away from your child. For example, if one of you believes it’s OK for 13-year-olds to date but the other thinks that that’s too young, you need to have that conversation independent of your child and figure out together how to respond in ways that provide information without undermining either one of you or your beliefs.

If You Don’t Know, Say “I Don’t Know.” There is a strong pressure on parents to know everything. Although we may love it when our kids are younger and think we do, we can’t possibly. The good news is there are tons of Web sites, books and other resources for parents.

If you’re stumped, be honest with your child, saying something like, “That’s a really great question. To be honest, I don’t know the answer. Let’s go look it up online together.” You won’t lose validity in your child’s eyes. In fact, he or she will appreciate your honesty.

There’s nothing about becoming a parent that makes us instant experts in sexuality-or in any other topic for that matter. But the good news is you’re not alone.

You can get support from trained sexuality educators, learn from fellow parents and get guidance from folks in your faith community, if you are a member of one. Talking about sexuality isn’t always easy, but it is always important.

“You Want Me to Say WHAT? Talking About Sex With Your Kids” was originally published by MOMeoMagazine.com

I stood on the Trenton train station platform last week waiting for the 6:26 a.m. train to Washington, D.C., and found myself thinking of the 10-year-old boy enduring anal rape by an adult man in the shower in the football facility of Penn State University.

Even in the early morning darkness, I had a clear mental image of the assault described by the assistant coach who witnessed it. I had just walked by a newspaper stand blazing with headlines about the child sexual abuse charges against the man, Jerry Sandusky, Penn State’s former defensive coordinator, who has been arraigned on 40 charges related to sex crimes against boys by a grand jury in a 23-page report. University officials first ignored and then lied to the grand jury about their failure to report the child abuse to authorities.

After I boarded the train, my only thought was that it get through Pennsylvania as quickly as possible, so I could turn off the picture of the child rape. I wanted to put the horrific, immoral crime out of my mind, because it made me almost gag or cry whenever I thought of it.

Throughout history, adult men have raped male and female children. It is close to being the most heinous crime, short of taking a child’s life. Sexual abuse survivors suffer bodily invasion, loss of power and trust, and possible lasting pain and sorrow that can destroy positive feelings about sexuality. It was a horrendous story out of Penn State, and it brought back memories of the pervasive rapes by the pedophile Catholic priests.

My head had cleared by the time I arrived in D.C. to attend the 28th Annual Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, given annually by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights. This year’s award went to Frank Mugisha of Uganda, who the center described as “a leading advocate fighting for equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) community in Uganda and against the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would make “homosexual activities” punishable by life in prison on the first offense and death sentence for aggravated offenses.”

Photo: Brendan O’Donnell Photo taken of Frank Mugisha on 14 December 2009 in the House of Parliament in London.

I learned more about Mugisha’s exemplar life and work when he appeared onstage with Robert Kennedy’s widow, Ethel, his daughter, Kerry Kennedy, who is president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights, and other dignitaries. He looked small and frail, but I soon learned that the only aspect about him that seems diminutive is his height. When Kerry Kennedy detailed why he had received the award, I realized that he had the heart of a lion.

“Frank Mugisha knew at 14 he was gay,” Kennedy said, “and he came out knowing full well that he was taking great personal risk, and he was going to have to suffer harassment and abuse throughout his life if he chose to remain in his homeland.”

She added that the extent of the abuse hurled at sexual minorities in Uganda is unimaginable to people living in a free society. As a result of coming out as a gay man, Mugisha has lost jobs, friends, and is estranged from his family. He was expelled from his homeland because of his advocacy, but chose to return and fight for the rights of sexual minorities — knowing that he could lose his life in the effort.

Uganda is “one of 80 countries in the world where homosexuality is criminalized and punishable by death,” Kennedy said. She estimated that while homosexuality is opposed by almost the entire society, of the “32 million people who live in Uganda, about 500,000 are undoubtedly homosexual, but only few people — one of them Frank — are willing to speak for them.”

“Frank told me that he gets up every day in a hostile climate to advocate for these persecuted people, because he believes ‘I have to do what I have to do,’” she said.

This past January, one of the other few people who did speak for gay people’s rights — Mugisha’s colleague David Kato, an advocacy and litigation officer for Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) — was brutally murdered in his home.

“Yet Frank continues to courageously provide leadership for the movement in the face of constant death threats and in the aftermath of the ruthless killing,” Kennedy said.

Since 2007, Mugisha has led SMUG, which advocates for LGBTI rights, HIV/AIDS awareness, and support for openly gay people in the form of counseling and suicide prevention services. An important aspect of the RFK Human Rights Award is that for the next six years, the center will work with Mugisha, SMUG members, and others to advance the rights of sexual minorities in Uganda.

Not only will Mugisha go home with this beautiful honor, but he also has the promise of resources from a well-recognized nonprofit. Now he is not quite so alone. In fact, Kennedy asked everyone in the audience to stand and join her in a pledge to Mugisha, saying together in one strong voice: “You are not alone.” Chills went down my spine.

Kennedy ended her speech by referring to a lovely Africa proverb: “Plant trees when you are young, so when you are old you will enjoy their shade.” She assured the newly honored Human Rights Award Laureate that with the help of the RFK Center, he would be able to enjoy the shade of the trees they plant together.

The theme of the morning was a simple one: personal moral courage, so fundamental to Robert Kennedy’s beliefs. His daughter mentioned it, as did two other speakers who followed her to the podium: Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Michael Posner, the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

In their brief congratulations, both quoted the following words of Robert Kennedy’s, because they applied to Mugisha’s life and work:

“Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their peers, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”

These words rang in my ears as I took the train home. Unquestionably, every single adult connected with the Penn State sexual assault case failed the moral courage test that Mugisha passes each day of his life in Uganda.

Sandusky’s alleged crimes against young boys go beyond any discussion of morality and courage — and a jury of his peers will make a final determination as to his guilt or innocence. If he lived in Uganda, he probably would be hanged without any sort of a trial, because, as Kennedy told us, “most people there believe that gay men rape teenage boys.”

I wish everyone on the Penn State campus — especially the students who cheered fired head-football coach Joe Paterno — could have listened to Mugisha’s acceptance speech. He said that LGBTI rights are human rights, universal and non-negotiable. He said we must be people of good conscience who stand up and take action when we see something that is terribly wrong and hurtful to others — and that we all must celebrate moral courage wherever and whenever we find it. He assured us that even in Uganda, “Change will come.”

I was fortunate last week to see a personification of moral courage. It made the train ride home — even through Pennsylvania — much easier to bear.

“Moral Courage and the Penn State Child Sexual Abuse Case originally appeared on New Jersey Newsroom.”

An op-ed in today’s New York Times, “Does Sex Ed Undermine Parental Rights?” by Robert George and Melissa Moschella, is not as much about sexuality education as it is an overt example of how deeply the socially-conservative agenda is pervading all aspects of our culture.

This is no accident; it is an intentional, widespread campaign against not only sexual and reproductive health, sexuality education, women’s rights, and the inclusion of LGBTQ youth in anti-bullying measures, but also against the rights of young people to dare to want to access information that will make them educated consumers of the world in which they live.

This campaign started gaining momentum with the Tea Party (you know, the folks who applauded “Let’s hear it for letting someone who doesn’t have health insurance die!”), formerly considered to be more on the fringe, but who are now, inexplicably and horrifyingly, gaining legitimacy.

I’d like to highlight several core elements of social conservative propaganda-some of which appear throughout the piece-that continue to be used to manipulate people into thinking there is a concerted effort being made by educators to contribute, as the authors claim, to “the sexualization of children in our society at younger ages:”

1. Lie blatantly. If history has taught us anything, it’s that social conservatives believe that the end justifies the means. In their view, it is completely appropriate to lie to young people. This is what ignited the years-long battle sexuality education experts have fought to ensure that abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula be, at the very least, medically accurate.  These curricula lie to young people in order to scare and shame them out of having sex (even though research has shown that doing so is woefully ineffective). If in the end, a young person doesn’t have sex, social conservatives claim victory despite the fact that these young people may not have any self-esteem to speak of or know how to practice safer sex in the future.

2. Use fear. Sex ed wasn’t always such a controversial topic to teach, but social conservatives have turned the provision of school-based sexuality education into an adversarial “us against them” debate. They work to terrify parents out of trusting trained educators to provide children with the information they need to make healthy decisions, now and in the future.

In the Times Op-Ed, George and Moschella ask readers to imagine how they would feel if their child had just entered middle school and were provided with sex ed in which he [sic] was “…encouraged to disregard what you told him about sex, and to rely instead on teachers and health clinic staff members?”

Here they are trying to scare parents into believing that these terrible, awful, amoral educators are trying to undermine your parental authority. The lie inherent in this (see point #1) is that educators are telling young people to ignore what their parents have to say about sexuality.

In fact, the cardinal rule for anyone teaching sex ed to young people is to always encourage them to talk with their parents, caregivers, or other trusted adults in their lives, and to press those adults to do the same, within the context of their own family’s values.

3. Treat young people as idiots. If we do that, then we will be guaranteed to have the “sovereignty” over them that George and Moschella espouse.  For those of us who work with and on behalf of young people, the disenfranchisement of youth that is embraced by social conservatives is particularly infuriating.  The thought is that if young people are ignorant, they will remain dependent upon their parents-and this is as counterproductive for the young person as it is for the parent.

If we do not see young people as inherently smart and strong with great capacity for learning and doing things independently of us, we are not infusing the positive self-esteem and strength they need to be independent beings in the world. Social conservatives think of young people as incapable and needing constant adult supervision and support, and then expect them to be able to navigate the world effectively as adults. This is as ridiculous as teaching abstinence-only-until-marriage and assuming that as soon as people are in a heterosexual marriage that they will miraculously be infused with the full range of knowledge and skills they need to have happy, healthy relationships.  All of this sets young people up for failure from the earliest ages.

As a former college professor, I saw this firsthand when parents would call me to try to get  their child into an already-full class or discuss their child’s grades. I wondered whether these same parents would accompany their adult children to job interviews, help them ask someone out on a date, or be there to negotiate safer sex with a future partner.

Parents have to teach their children how to think for themselves. We are not our children’s friends, we are their parents.  And from the moment we become parents, our job is to help our children eventually become independent from us.

When it comes to sexuality, an oft-quoted phrase that comes from SIECUS is that parents are the primary and most important sexuality educators of their children. But the reality is that far too many parents are simply not equipped to teach their children age- and developmentally-appropriate information about sexuality - any more than they are equipped to teach trigonometry even if they were math whizzes in high school. Giving birth or adopting a child does not automatically make us experts in all of the topics and skills young people need to know to be prepared to navigate the world as adults.  This is why we need to rely on educational, medical, and other professional experts-and, if we are a member of a faith community, our faith leaders-to help us.

Educating young people about sexuality should be seen as a partnership between entities that share the common goal of having them grow into sexually healthy adults, not as a faux struggle between parents and schools.  Yet because of (and only because of) the hyperbolic rhetoric spewed by those like George and Moschella, sex ed continues to be seen as a battle.

This is as counterproductive as it is unhelpful. Young people deserve better, educational professionals deserve better, and parents deserve better.  I call upon us all to reject the rhetoric and focus on helping young people learn the content and skills they need in order to have happy, productive, rich lives.

“Spewing Misinformation and Ideology, A New York Times Op-Ed Spreads Unfounded Fears About Sex Ed” was originally published by RH Reality Check.