Introduction:

Article in the TwentyBelow section of the Register-Guard

Just Say Know
Honest discussions about sex a better way to teach teens.
Published: Monday, December 12, 2005

The "just say no" lecture is an American tradition, passed down through the generations, from father to son, mother to daughter. It's sometimes given in complete silence - a lack of information acting as the subtle stand-in for the vocal commandments that parents bestow upon their children.

Sex is bad. It's corrupting, it's immoral, it's all in your in head. In fact, it may not even exist. Sound familiar?

It sounded all too familiar to a group of Unitarian Universalists, who teamed up with United Church of Christ to create a new kind of lecture. Welcome to ''Our Whole Lives (OWL for short): Sexuality and Our Faith.'' Don't be scared. Be open, be honest, be ready to talk and ask questions.

This isn't your mother's sex ed class. We sit in a loosely defined circle, eating ancient licorice and fresh bagels, acclimating ourselves to the room we'll be in for the majority of our precious Saturday. There are 16 of us, all high school students, all at least vaguely acquainted with each other's faces. When we've settled into the disassembled couch cushions, an adult leader hands us the script of the opening ritual.

"Who would like to be voice one?" she asks. A volunteer clears his throat and begins our day at church. "We light the candle for session one to remind ourselves that God desires sexual health for us." With the flick of a match, we enter into a brilliant new kind of education. With the candle lighted and the assembled students well prepared and ready to learn, we jump into waters that feel surprisingly comfortable. Who knew that you could talk with a room of teenagers about ovulation and the human response cycle without giggle fits and awkward silences? Who knew that there was more than one kind of condom, or that sometimes pregnancies really are planned, or that love really is important, and that this whole sex thing doesn't have to be so mysterious and clinical and scary?

The wealth of information that OWL provides us is something we're thankful for. It creates more well-informed, knowledgeable teenagers than any high school sex ed class could produce. The anatomical words that those classroom "maps" once hinted at are used openly and correctly. Sensuality, sexuality and the difference between the two is discussed honestly. The fact that not all parents and couples are heterosexual is acknowledged and embraced.

It helps that all parents of OWL students are required to attend a two-part orientation, where every slide, every photo and every video is shown to them for discussion and approval. They review our curriculum and talk about the wonderful differences between OWL and their, well, ''trial and error'' education, as my father puts it. It was trial and error fostered by classes that taught abstinence until marriage as the only choice. The parent orientation opens the channels of communication between parent and child in a surprising way. It's always the beginning of a good conversation when a parent asks, "What did you talk about in OWL today?"

These parents are helping to defeat the ignorance that abounds around the subject of sex. They're allowing us to be educated in a whole new way - a way that few would have dreamed of during their generation. As for my generation, a shift is happening. We are well informed, we are comfortable with our new education and we are ready to end the cycle of the "no" lecture.

OWL is creating a group of teens who will be sexually responsible and who will make choices based on health and knowledge. This radical new idea of the "just say know" discussion is working.

~ Erin Miller is a junior at Churchill High. The R-G website URL. may not work after a time, thus we have printed the whole article here.

Published Resources available to parents and children

Other O.W.L. Program books:

Other books on sexuality education include:

Web Sites for Sexuality Education:

Unitarian Universalist Association Bookstore: http://www.uua.org/bookstore/

Faith-based Advocacy Resources for Comprehensive Sexuality Education (from 1998 Unitarian Universality Association General Assembly): http://www.uua.org/ga/ga98/jun29sexed.html/

Our Whole Lives Curriculum Information: http://www.uua.org/owl/main.html/

Planned Parenthood Federation of America: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/

Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS): http://www.siecus.org/

American Social Health Association (ASHA): http://www.ashastd.org/

Society for Human Sexuality (University of Washington student-run site): http://www.sexuality.org/