Teaching Sex

Sex education, since its advent at the dawn of the twentieth century, has provoked the hopes and fears of generations of parents, educators, politicians, and reformers. On its success or failure seems to hinge the moral fate of the nation and its future citizens. But whether we argue over condom distribution to teenagers or the use of an anti-abortion curriculum in high schools, we rarely question the basic premise--that adolescents need to be educated about sex. How did we come to expect the public schools to manage our children's sexuality? More important, what is it about the adolescent that arouses so much anxiety among adults? Teaching Sex travels back over the past century to trace the emergence of the sexual adolescent and the evolution of the schools' efforts to teach sex to this captive pupil. Jeffrey Moran takes us on a fascinating ride through America's sexual mores: from a time when young men were warned about the crippling effects of masturbation, to the belief that schools could and should train adolescents in proper courtship and parenting techniques, to the reemergence of sexual abstention brought by the AIDS crisis. We see how the political and moral anxieties of each era found their way into sex education curricula, reflecting the priorities of the elders more than the concerns of the young. Moran illuminates the aspirations and limits of sex education and the ability of public authority to shape private behavior. More than a critique of public health policy, Teaching Sex is a broad cultural inquiry into America's understanding of adolescence, sexual morality, and social reform.

Exposes the lies and misconceptions about sex education taught to American children in school, including information on sexually transmitted diseases, contraception, and homosexuality.

This essential manual helps educators comfortably and knowledgeably bring comprehensive sex education to the special education classroom. Drawing on firsthand experience and real-world examples, the first half provides background material—including common roadblocks—and tools for how to effectively partner with parents. The second half breaks down the how-tos of implementing a successful sex education program and troubleshoots tricky situations that might come up in the special education classroom. Written in accessible, person-first language, this guide equips you with best practices for providing students with developmental disabilities with the knowledge and tools to engage in healthy relationships and live full lives as self-advocating sexual beings.

Teaching about Sex and Sexualities in Higher Education argues that much more can be done in teaching about sex and sexuality in higher education. This edited collection provides key information on professional training and support, and acts as a crucial resource on sex, sexuality, and related issues. With a focus on diversity, this book features expert contributors who discuss key concepts, debates, and current issues across disciplines to help educators improve curriculum content. This collection aims to provide adequate and appropriate sex education training and opportunities to educators so that they may explore complex personal and emotional issues, build skills, and develop the confidence necessary to help others in their respective fields.

This book provides innovative pedagogy, theory, and strategies for college and university professors who seek effective methods and materials for teaching about gender and sex to today’s students. It provides thoughtful reflections on the new struggles and opportunities instructors face in teaching gender and sex during what has been called the “post-feminist era.” Building off its predecessor: Teaching Race and Anti-Racism in Contemporary America, this book offers complementary classroom exercises for teachers, that foster active and collaborative learning. Through reflecting on the gendered dimensions of the current political, economic, and cultural climate, as well as presenting novel lesson plans and classroom activities, Teaching Gender and Sex in Contemporary America is a valuable resource for educators.

There are several reasons for providing sexuality education to individuals with autism including supporting healthy development and preventing undesirable outcomes. Supporting healthy development is predicated on notions that humans are inherently sexual beings and that knowledge about sexual development can empower the individual and contribute to more satisfying outcomes. Individuals with autism are at risk for poor outcomes in each of these areas, and specialized sexuality education may help reduce this risk. Ultimately, providing sexuality education to individuals with autism should lead to tangible, observable, and valuable outcomes that improve quality of life. However, many families, teachers, and therapists struggle with how to teach sexuality education to people with autism. Cases on Teaching Sexuality Education to Individuals With Autism is a critical scholarly resource that provides real case studies that show teachers, behavior analysts, and other stakeholders how to address sexuality education and problem behaviors using evidence-based practices. The case studies detail how teachers and therapists make treatment decisions, include family values and cultural beliefs in treatment, and use data to drive treatment decisions. Featuring a wide range of topics such as developmental disabilities, psychosexual development, and special education, this book is ideal for teachers, parents, therapists, behavior analysts, educational professionals, academicians, administrators, curriculum developers, researchers, and students.

"Teaching Moral Sex is the first comprehensive study to focus on the role of religion in the history of public sex education in the United States. It examines religious contributions to national sex education organizations from the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century, highlighting issues of public health, public education, family, and the role of the state. It details how public sex education was created through the collaboration of religious sex educators-primarily liberal Protestants, along with some Catholics and Reform Jews-with "men of science," namely physicians, biology professors, and social scientists. Slominski argues that the work of early religious sex educators laid foundations for both sides of contemporary controversies regarding comprehensive sexuality education and abstinence-only education. In other words, instead of casting religion as merely an opponent of sex education, this research shows how deeply embedded religion has been in sex education history and how this legacy has shaped terms of current debates. By focusing on religion, this book introduces a new cast of characters into sex education history, including Quaker and Unitarian social purity reformers, the Young Men's Christian Association, military chaplains, the Federal Council of Churches, and the National Council of Churches. These religious sex educators made sex education more acceptable to the public and created the groundwork for recent debates through their strategic combination of progressive and restrictive approaches to sexuality. Their contributions helped to spread sex education and influenced major shifts within the movement, including the mid-century embrace of family life education"--

This volume combines insights from secular sexuality education, trauma studies, and embodiment to explore effective strategies for teaching sexuality and religion in colleges, universities, and seminaries. Contributors to this volume address a variety of sexuality-related issues including reproductive rights, military prostitution, gender, fidelity, queerness, sexual trauma, and veiling from the perspective of multiple religious faiths. Christian, Jewish, and Muslim scholars present pedagogy and classroom strategies appropriate for secular and religious institutional contexts. By foregrounding a combination of "perspective transformation" and "embodied learning" as a means of increasing students’ appreciation for the varied social, psychological, theological and cultural contexts in which attitudes to sexuality develop, the volume posits sexuality as a critical element of teaching about religion in higher education. This book will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics, and libraries in the fields of Religious Studies, Religious Education, Gender & Sexuality, Religion & Education, and Sociology of Religion.