"What used to be is just nowhere to be found"

I've started watching the Channel 4 series "Let's talk about sex". The whole series can be watched for free on the website.

- What annoys me is grown-ups who get their kids sex ed because they're uncomfortable with talking about sex and their kids end up paying the price for it. EVERYthing shows abstinence-only programs DON'T work, and I truly do not understand how parents can keep the wool so tight over their eyes that they would still go for that option rather than teach their kids to 1) protect themselves and 2) protect others.

- What the fuck are we doing about boys? It's so unfair how much of the burden rests on girls when mistakes are made. Moms tend to be more concerned about the sex life of their kids, and of their daughters in particular. But god, you need a man and woman to have a baby. There are boys in that documentary that say, if the woman doesn't ask for a condom, then they'll go without it. That's so many levels of wrong. Condoms shouldn't be the woman's responsibility, and I'm appalled that we're not teaching boys that. (Just had a thought - it's even more terrifying when you think of gay male teenagers because where's the woman to suggest a condom in that relationship?)

- I find it so hard to find a right balance, figure out what age is best to talk about what, and how graphically. I think we tend to be out of touch with how in touch some kids are with sex. The other day a friend was telling us about this 10-year-old girl she watches over and who watches porn sometimes at night - and her boy friends at school already download porn off the internet! Yet they won't be given sex ed for another what, 3 or 4 years at best. We don't want to shock kids but some of them are so ahead of us. How do you deal with the differences amongst kids? Because the average age for a first time is still around 17. It's such a delicate issue, especially considering parents are more or less uptight. But the more I think about it, the more it seems obvious to me kids should be told more explicitly about sex earlier on. In the end, what are we really afraid of?


EDIT : Interestingly enough, my own experience is little helpful. I cannot remember my parents ever giving me The Talk (they're not big on sitting their kids down and having Talks, I suspect), but condoms have always been a pretty obvious necessity to me. (Of course, there's a difference between being aware of protection and using it, and the catch is that I never had to make that choice of using a condom or not.) But it really makes me wonder where I did get my sex ed from, and I suspect that might be from books my mom brought home from her library. Note to self : must probe little brother's memory.

Rummaging for answers in the pages

I ended up never saying a word about the presentation on gender and work I did with littlegothsin last week for our UK Civilization class. It went really well, and people asked questions afterwards. Made me so happy people actually had things to say - and it was sort of funny because afterwards Tara (one of the girls who'd asked a question) came up to me and was like, I hope it didn't bother you I asked something. Er, how about NO.

What struck me is that the few girls who took part in the discussion after the presentation seemed pretty optimistic about the situation improving in the next twenty years - Tara said something about how our generation of women wouldn't let the guys do no housework at home. It made me realize how pretty pessimistic I am about the issue - when I see how little boys (and little girls) are still raised today? I cannot bring myself to believe things will improve that greatly in a decade or two. I also get a feeling it's getting better for the higher, more educated classes, but in the meanwhile? The situation isn't getting any better for the lower classes. Listening to some kids when I go to schools with the MAG, I have a feeling things might even be getting worse.


While I'm on gender issues and gender perception in a society that's supposedly moving away from patriarchy, here's an interesting article about advertising in the men's magazine GQ.

In the same vein... the other day I was biking back from school when a couple of ads caught my attention. They're ads for one of the latest Suzuki car, the Swift. The first one says "Who said cars were solely a male fantasy?" which I was like, hey! Challenging stereotypes, yay! So it's for a tiny city car and not a Hummer, but it's a start. And then immediately after I discovered another ad for the same car, which this time reads "sensuality, seduction, swift... words are never feminine by chance." (French words always have a gender, unlike in English.) And I was like, *facepalm*.

I find interesting that this is the same ad campaign, which possibly reflects our current society's struggle between trying to challenge stereotypes while still heavily relying on those same stereotypes. Of course, the gender of word doesn't always follow a patriarchal pattern : strength (la force) and intelligence, for example, are both feminine in French. But it's never innocent to associate seduction and sensuality with women - and we can't pretend it is.

For more positive models of masculinity in advertising, see the Jules ad campaign "Il paraît que les hommes sont..." ("they say men are..."), which I really love, especially as a photographer (how much do I wish I'd taken those pictures?). It's too bad because they only have a sample there of all the cards they printed out for the campaign, but already some are pretty telling. (First one says "they say men are obsessed" and the second one, "they say men are abrupt".)


The more I go on, the more I realize this is really what I'm most interested in - gender studies, basically. Too bad that we basically don't what it is in France. Or that it doesn't lead to anywhere very precise. But hey, I guess it's still a step ahead of everyone who doesn't even know what they're really interested in!

Where the Wild Things Are

Does anyone own Where the Wild Things Are? In English? Pleeeease?