September 26, 2023 • 48 mins
Congratulations, you’ve been accepted to the inaugural class of Therapy for Black Girls University (TBG U).
Whether you’re packing for a new year on campus, thinking through your gap year, enrolling in a community college, or grabbing your stoles for graduation, embarking on the next chapter of your life is often exciting, but also a little scary. There can be a lot of unknowns that can leave you feeling uncertain and having the right support can help you to feel confident and grounded. TBG U was designed to help you strengthen your voice, sharpen your knowledge, and affirm who you are and who you’ll become. Our goal is to create relevant and accessible resources, content, and experiences to help you thrive at this stage of your life and beyond.
If you thought we were reserving the Sex Positive September celebrations for our big sister brand, you thought wrong. Welcome to Sex Positive September, TBG U style. My name is Jayna Ellis, and I am the TBG University Coordinator. You may remember my voice from a previous TBG U episode, ‘The Growing Pains of Graduation’. Dr. Joy has kindly passed me the mic to begin leading the TBG U Series as your new host. And because we wanted to return with a bang, in today’s episode, we’re talking all things S-E-X in college.
Joining me today is sexual health education enthusiast, Dr. Daniella Thorne. She has over twelve years of experience in sex education research, curriculum writing, direct service, training design development and facilitation.
Where to Find Dr. Thorne
Resources
Lovers and Friends with Shan Boodram on Apple Podcasts
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Interested in being a part of a future TBG U episode or suggesting a topic for us to discuss, send us a note HERE.
Order a copy of Sisterhood Heals for you and your girls HERE.
Our Production Team
Executive Producers: Dennison Bradford & Maya Cole Howard
Producers: Fredia Lucas, Ellice Ellis & Cindy Okereke
Production Intern: Zariah Taylor
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Congratulations, you've been accepted into the inaugural class of Therapy
for Black Girls University. Whether you're packing for a new
year on campus, thinking through your gap year, enrolling in
a community college, or grabbing your souls for graduation, Embarking
on the next chapter of your life is often exciting
(00:27):
but also a little scary. There can be a lot
of unknowns that can leave you feeling uncertain, and having
the right support can help you to feel confident and grounded.
TBGU was designed to help strengthen your voice, sharpen your knowledge,
and affirm who you are and who you'll become. Our
(00:50):
goal is to create relevant and accessible resources, content, and
experiences to help you thrive at this stage of your
life and beyond.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
More from our conversation after the break.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
If you thought we were reserving the Sex Positive September
celebrations for our Big Sister brand, you thought wrong. Welcome
to Sex Positive September TBGU style. My name is Jana
Ellis and I'm the TBG University Coordinator. You may remember
my voice from a previous TBGU episode, The Growing Pains
(01:30):
of Graduation. Doctor Joy has so kindly passed me the
mic to begin leading the TBGU series as your new
host and because we wanted to return with a bang.
In today's episode, we're talking all things sex in College.
Joining me today is sexual health education enthusiast doctor Daniella Thorne.
(01:53):
She has over twelve years of experience in sex education, research,
curriculum writing, direct service training, design, development and facilitation. Doctor
Thorn holds both a master's and doctoral degree in public
health and has dedicated her career to supporting the advancement
(02:14):
and institutionalization of inclusive, evidence informed, and comprehensive sexual health
education and school districts across the country. In our conversation today,
we break down what's missing from gen z's current discourse
around sex, what it means to practice sex positivity versus
sex negativity, and shed light on how friends and family
(02:38):
can support college students they suspect of suffering from sexual
abuse or harassment. Here's our conversation. Very excited to chat
with you, doctor Thorne.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Awesome, Thank you, Good morning. I'm so happy to be
here with you all.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yes, good morning. So you are a sexual health expert
who has worked closely with youth and developing culturally competent
sex education curricula, to start, can you tell our audience
what degrees you have, what do you have them in,
and how all these degrees have informed your work.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yes, well, I'm so happy you act. So I went
to school a lot, right, So I have a bachelor's
in human biology Bachelor's of Science from the University at
Albany in upstate New York. I also have a master's
in public health with a concentration in health policy and management,
also from the University at Albany. And then lastly, the
spirit moved me to get a doctoral degree from Georgia
(03:35):
Southern University. I have a Doctor of Public Health with
a focus in community health and education. So that is
a little bit of my educational history.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Lovely, Well, can you walk us through what inspired you
to work with youth and sexual health advocacy?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, great question. I was always interested in team pregnancy prevention.
And then after I got my master's degree, someone have
reached to me to be a long term sub for
biology at a charter school. So I was like, okay,
make a little extra coin during the master's program the
girls meet the coin, and so I did that one mornings,
maybe for like two or three periods, and I really
(04:11):
enjoyed it. My mom is an educator, she's a retired
educator in New York City school. So I always had
an aversion to education in regards to teaching in the
traditional sense, but I enjoyed bio kinda. But I noticed
that the young girls, who were predominantly black and brown
girls right from Auburney, New York, they always had questions
about their bodies. And at the time, I was in
my early twenties. So they told me as like big cousin,
(04:34):
who happens to be the bioteacher. And so once I
completed my master's program, I had asked the principle if
I could teach a public health course, and she really
gave me the true autonomy to develop the course and
pilot it, and so I was able to really embed
a lot of the answers that the youth were asking
me into the course outline. And I fell in love
(04:55):
with sexual reproductive health. Like I was like, oh girl,
you do not out your regina. Let's talk about anatomy, right,
Let's talk about hygiene. Let's talk about all the things
that they used to come up and just talk to
me about their partners and how do they navigate safe
sex practices, and so I was able to embed that
in my classroom and also bring in culturally competent things
(05:16):
that can land with my girls. Right, So we're dissecting
hip hop songs that I know that they're listening to,
and we're talking about how does misogyny show up, right,
and where do we get these ideas? Oh my goodness,
at the time, thought had become a thing. I don't
know if you ever know that word. I might be
aging myself now, but I didn't even know what that
word meant. And so just talking about like, what does
(05:37):
that even mean? How do we determine whether someone is that?
And just really unpacking those things. And so that's truly
where I fell in love with education, sexual reproductive health
education with young people, particularly my black brown girls. And
then I got to a place of like, I don't
want to do this for the rest of my life.
So how do I position myself to be in spaces
(05:58):
and to be in rooms in which we're talking sexide
curricula for people that look like me? Right, because we
cannot continue to take the cookie cutter approach and not
have the conversations. Now, in hindsight, I didn't have to
go get a doctorate for all of that and the
Cruity student loans. But I decided to do that, and
I'm grateful for what I did because now it's something
one you can't take away from me into when I'm
(06:19):
having the conversations, I have the theory to really back
the things that I'm saying, and it positions me to
then now train educators who are going to go into
classrooms in ways that they can be more inclusive, be
more values neutrals when they're getting ready to teach sex
at how health education to the young people. So that's
a little bit of my trajectory and how I fell
into sexual reductive health for young people.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I love that. I adore that, and I think it's
so important to have the teachers or the professors that
are like cool with you enough to have those conversations
and to open you up to questions you didn't know
you had. So I love that in your dissertation you
talked and you exe adolescent perspectives on sexual health education
(07:03):
curricula within the respective Georgia schools. Can you briefly talk
with us through your study and share some key insights
that you've gathered from that research.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah, so part of the doctor process for me was
to complete a dissertation. And a dissertation is essentially a
novel study in which you look up a thing. It
should be based in theory and no one has ever
explored it before. Right, That's essentially what it's today. You
write a really long book to like defend the things
that you explored. So I knew I wanted to work
(07:36):
with young people. What I didn't consider was that I
went to school in a very, very rural town in Georgia.
Like talk about trusting the Lord. I never visited this school.
I saw that they had a focus in community health education.
I was like, yep, this sounds good. This curriculum makes sense.
I'm gonna apply. They let me in, gave me a fellowship.
(07:57):
I moved to Statesboro, Georgia, and I'm talking about cotton
feels on the side. Thankfully they had a Walmart, and
I'm like, girl's supposed to be here for three years.
This was the stupidest decision I had ever made, but
I quit my job. I'm here now. And so I
went into this very rural Bible Belt city saying, hey, y'all,
(08:18):
I'm the girl from Brooklyn who wants to study sexual
reproductive health. And these are in spaces where the health
pe teacher also happens to be the deacon of the
whatever church is local, right, And so I remember my
dissertation chair saying, you sure you're going to get this
research done here, and I'm like, well, baby, that's what
I came for. So I was able to do four
(08:39):
focused groups with young people ages fourteen to eighteen to
really explore their perception of facilitators and barriers to accessing
sexual reproductive health education in their schools, and then also
their perception of what are the positives of getting sex
set in schools, what are the possible negatives. At the
time the area that my cohort came from, they were
(09:00):
still getting abstinence only sex ad honey, and like it
is twenty and fifty, Like come on, and so they're
still doing abstinence only And I just was like, Okay,
we know how teachers feel. There's a lot of research
on how parents feel. There's a lot of research about
administrators communities, but like, y'all talk to the kids. You
never have anybody talk to the kids. And so it
(09:21):
was so awesome to have a conversation with the young people,
just candid conversations focus groups really to get rich data
about what their desires were, and many of them had
same concerns. So they found that their barriers were oftentimes educators.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Teachers are uncomfortable talking to young people about sex, which
makes the young people feel uncomfortable to ask questions. They
found that parents can sometimes be advocates for sex said,
but they also can be hinderanced. Right, I don't want
my child, My baby don't need to learn about that.
My baby won't ever, and that's usually the baby that
is ever right. And also, just like administrators, they found
(09:57):
that community members have to really advocate and we see
that now all these years later. If the community and
the parents are advocating for some level of comprehensive sex
education in the school systems, usually the school districts have
to meet that need. So it was really dope to
be able to get that information from the young people,
talk to the young people, and thankfully enough that particular
(10:17):
district ended up adopting a more inclusive sex at curriculum.
I wouldn't say because of my dissertation work, there was
already community like advocacy happening on the ground roots around
changing the curriculum, and so my dissertation happened at like
a pivotal time where I was like, oh, I got
to collect this data before they change everything, which is
like a great thing, but also I got to get
(10:39):
up out of here, right, And so that was what
my research was around. I love that.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So can you explain or dive into what does inclusive
sex ed look like?
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, so inclusive sex ed, comprehensive sex ed looks like
age and stage appropriate information for young people and that
means a lot of things. So that means at kindergarten,
we are talking to our young people about boundaries, right,
what does a good boundary look like? If so, this
is your circle of space. If someone doesn't want to
(11:13):
be in your circle of space, you got to check it.
Can I give you a hug? May I borrow your pencil?
Can I borrow your blanket? For nap time? That's in
the elementary level or even kindergarten, and then it goes
all the way through the life course and so conference
and sex education. We're not teaching kindergarteners about safe sex practices, right,
We're saving that for later years because we want to
(11:34):
make sure it's agent stage appropriate. But exploring your sexuality
and human growth and development is literally a part of
the human experience. And so we're not going to wait
till high school to talk about puberty when many of
our young people are experiencing changes to their body physically, emotionally, mentally,
perhaps in late elementary fifth grade, and so it's having
conversations around basic anatomy, safe sex practices, boundaries, decision making,
(12:00):
refusal skills. I think people oftentimes they're just like, say
no to sex, say no to drugs. But what do
you do when you actually want to have sex with
your partner? How do you say no when you actually
do have the desire, Right, it's easier to say no
the stranger, but if you're a partnered then you want
to express your love in that way. How do you
do that? How do you negotiate common usage, How do
you have conversations around decision making with your partner? Right?
(12:24):
How do you explore pregnancy options? And of course these
are topics that will come up later on, perhaps in
high school, but it's really across the life course. Our
bodies are consistently changing. For that fourth grade person who
might be developing breast tissue. Do they even know what
breast tissue is? When they get their cycles? Do they
know how to change your sanitary products? If no one
has ever told them that, Hey, there's going to come
(12:46):
a point where you're going to start and now you're like,
oh my gosh, I'm dying a little bit. There's blood
coming from parts of my body that doesn't make sense.
So it's just teaching people about their bodies and really
normalizing that it is a part of the life. Of course,
that your body is going to continue to change. Jes
desires are normal. And also exploring gender identity, sexual orientation,
(13:07):
all those things, all all of it put a nice
bow on it. Those are topics that show up in
inclusive sex education. I love that.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
So we talked about like what does inclusive sex ed
look like? But what does exploring it look like? What
does exploring your sexuality look like?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Okay, I think exploring your sexuality looks like what does
pleasure look like to you?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Right?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
So exploring your sexuality is what feels good to me?
When do I feel the most sexiest, what do I
feel the most confident? Who are the people that I'm
enjoying sharing intimate space? With right. What clothes make me feel?
You know, there's a cere materary. You know, for some
it might be some satin pajamas that you just put
it on. You're like, wow, I'm given today? And so
(13:51):
what does pleasure look like to you? And pleasure isn't
always physical intercourse? Pleasure can be just feeling good and
confident about yourself. What are the things that make you
feel the most confident, that bring you joy? And also
exploring sexualities to me is whom are you attracted to?
Perhaps what type of sex do you enjoy to have?
(14:12):
And then I would say unlearning some of the biases
that you may have been taught around sexuality, whether we
realize it or not. Our upbringing, there are so many
values that are embedded in us, from our homes where
we're rare, the communities in which we grow up, in
the music that we listen to. I grew up with
(14:32):
a mom who loved those I'm talking about Arry White,
Lutha Vangels. I will send you a Luther Vanders going down. Okay?
That music also embeds little things and values about sex
and sexuality, and so exploring what those biases are. Do
you hold these values or were these values superimposed on you?
All of that is exploration, and I think it's constant.
(14:54):
I'm a thirty five year old woman who even now,
I'm like, huh, do I have that because I have
that opinion? Or is it because I grew up in
a Caribbean household and like I just had no other
choice but to have that opinion. So I would say
learning exploring, but also for some it is unlearning.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yes, I'm curious to know what is sex positivity? Can
you elaborate on what that looks like? I am so
excited for this answer. For me, I am new to
sex positivity and so wanting to just learn, Like what
does that mean?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
The terms are forever changing. To me, sex positivity is
like really showing up as your most authentic, having the
most agency about your sexual decision making. And I would
say consensual sexual decision making really free of like bias
or judgment, right, Like, this is who I am, This
is what makes me feel good. These are the sexual
(15:49):
decisions that I make. I am communicating my desires to
my partners. I am exploring fantasies. I am advocating for
myself and my sexual health. Perhaps when I'm with my clinician, like,
I am just walking in my most authentic sexual being self.
If I want to wear my sat in pajamas to
sleep because it's gonna make me feel good, I'm gonna
(16:10):
do those things. I think it's like having true autonomy
and agency around your sexual decision. And to me, that's
what sex positivity is. And you know, some people choose
to share those things out broadly and others shoes not
to you. So to me, that's what it is to
be sex positive, really walking in your desires and feeling
confident and comfortable in your decision making around sex and sexuality.
(16:32):
A lot of the things that folks would say would
be sex positive, right, would be like, that's not lady
like now, people don't need to know you know now,
don't share that too much. You keep that for marriage, right,
And then you get into purity culture and all those things.
So it's a really interesting concept to kind of wrap
your mind around.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
But what do you think is missing from gen Z's
current discourse around sex positivity on social media?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Oh my god, I think what is so amazing about
gen Z is that there's a level of confidence and
like sex positivity. For sure, they walk in their purpose.
They obviously naturally have access to way more information than
I could even fathom having at that time. But I
just think that because of social media, there is just
(17:20):
so much perpetuation of misinformation, and so there is this
like sometimes I would say misinformation or disinformation. Sometimes it's intentional,
other times I just think that it's like this is
literally not true. But if you can get viral enough
and get enough people to follow you on TikTok or
you get that SoundBite that goes to the shade room,
(17:40):
now people will be googling the thing that was literally
not true. And so it's like, what's missing to me
is just this fact based information Because as much as
gen Z is out here doing amazing things, gen Z
is also a generation that didn't necessarily have access to
conference with sex at at least school based conference with
sex at right, And so you theory, you ask Google,
(18:01):
you talk to Alexa to get some information that you
may not have, and there could just be this crazy
perpetuation of false information. And I think that's what's missing, Like,
how do you go back to the fact to ensure
that the things that you're saying are indeed correct? Right?
Catching an see sitting on a toilet seed, You're not
going to get that. But I guarantee you if a
(18:23):
celebrity or someone who has a following accidentally says something
like that, there is someone who is not going to
do the fact checking. Now the world thinks that this
is the truth, right, and now we've lost everyone because
now for this forty eight hours on Instagram, there are
gonna be people who walk away feeling like this falsehood
(18:43):
is true. And I think that's what's missing the fact checking.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Can you list and debunk some of the common misconceptions
that you're speaking about.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Yes, oh, such a good question. I would say, literally,
how do people potentially expose themselves to sexually transmit the FF?
I think we saw this even with COVID or monkey
popster Like people just really lack basic understanding. Granted I
have several public health degrees, but like basic understanding of
how things are transmitted to person to person. I think
(19:14):
that there is a lack of information on particularly backsterial infections.
So if you get community at once, you can't get
in here, and you can unless you complete t your antibiotics.
I think there's a lot of information missing there, Like
there's a lot of information missing around basic anatomy. I
follow those page on Instagram and they go around and
they ask male presenting people questions around female anatomy, like
(19:37):
what is the different sizes of tampon stand for? And
some of their responses, I'm like, not in twenty twenty
three are y'all saying it's the size of the vagina.
So I think there also is just a basic misunderstanding
of anatomy. The conversation about like permiscuity and just number
of people you've had sex with. Is that an indicator
of your sexual reproductive health status and wellness? No? So
(20:00):
I just think there's so many myths that just need
to be debunked.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I think that is amazing, and I want to get
a bit negative. So can you describe what is sex negativity?
Like what does it mean to be sex negative? How
does that show up in our daily lives? Can you
describe what that looks like for the everyday person, because
I'm sure it's more common than what we're thinking.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I think any common statement that is based in misogyny,
purity culture, the patriarchy, anything that has to do with
like the sexist like women should this right, men can
do this, but girls should do this. If they do that,
then they are this. I think all of that is
sex negative. Anything that does not concern you in your body,
(20:48):
in your part, that you have to say about someone
else's decision making is negative. Any stereotypes that are perpetuated
around a person, their body, their jenneral identity, their sexual
orientation is sex negative. Because the whole idea about sex
positivity is like free of shame, right, Like you are
who you are, and you make your sexual reductive health
(21:10):
decisions unashamed, very clearly, and you're making these decisions for you,
yourself and perhaps your partner. I think anything that is
sex negative is not mine of your business drinking your
water and minding other people's private parts, right, because what
someone does is especially if I'm not being intimate with them,
it's literally none of my business. However, a lot of
(21:33):
the music that we listen to right is based in
sex negativity. If you just think about the discourse that
we see on social media around sex, it's so based
in purity culture, like I'm not marrying a person that
has had X or this, Like it is so deeply ingrained.
And that's why when we were talking about exploring one
(21:53):
sexuality or even sex positivity. I was saying, some of
it is unlearning because I think in general, a lot
of the rhetoric that we are taught, and I also
speak specifically for me being Caribbean and being Christian, it
is based in a culture that probably a white man outlined,
and we have just been listening to it for our
(22:15):
entire lives. And so we believe that women should be
this and men should be that, and men definitely have
the ability to explore their sexuality and sow their royal Oh,
but a woman should just be deep and allow a
man to please them. I was listening to this podcast
a couple months ago, and I move my mind and
the question was when the sex end? And I just
(22:36):
think about, like the movies, the TV show sex ends
when the man climaxes, the man climaxes, and then sex
is over. And I'm like, what do you do? What
a concept? But that's what's perpetuated in the media, right
like this male present, a person climaxes and now the
experience is over. And so if you just think about
deeply all the message that we are taught around stereotypes
(22:59):
about men and women, et cetera. Who a lot of
it is sex negative and most of the burden to
be sexually I would say oppressed is all the women.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
More from our conversation after the break.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
So amongst our group chats, in our dorm rooms, in
our friend groups, we've heard this term body count and
discuss it's importance or lack thereof. What are your thoughts
(23:49):
on some of the discourse surrounding the amount of people
someone has had sex with.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
My thoughts is, like, y'all really be bored. There is
no way we are still talking about like throw out
the window. It is such an antiquated conversation, and I
find the people who are perpetuating this conversation are film misinformed,
because the real questions that you need to be asking
(24:15):
someone is when's the last time you've had a comprehensive
sexual reproductive health analysis a blood panel where we're exploring
your possibility of viral bacterial parazoa, Like, when's the last
time you've been tested for real? For real, don't just
tell me they just swapped you clmenty and gonnerhea, because
there's a lot of stuff out there other than that. Right,
(24:37):
that's the conversation a person can have one sexual partner,
no sexual partner, one hundred and fifty sexual partners, that
still is not an indicator of their health status. I
think the conversation is pregnancy options. If we are having sex,
if we're having vaginal unprotected sex or even protected sex,
there's a possibility of pregnancy. Let's have a conversation about
(24:58):
what are our thoughts about if we potentially have an
unintended pregnancy. What are your safe sex practices? That's the
question for me to ask, Right, are you on some
form of hormonal birth controls? Do you use condoms?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Like?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
What are we the number of people what? I just
think it's a very old conversation, again still based in misogyny,
because I don't think that women are asking men these questions.
Anytime that I've seen it come up, it is or mom,
when we got to only have X, Y and Z,
I'm not marrying nobody to have more than X, Y
(25:32):
and Z, and like also too, where are these numbers
coming from? You know? But at the same time, if
you have the perceptions could be if you have x
amount of partners on the higher spectrum of whatever this
spectrum is, that is just problematic. Does that mean that
you have more experience. It's just problematic and the conversation
has been very long standing. I do not think it's
(25:55):
going anywhere. And I think it's because this expectation of
like purity culture.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I know, for me, it was always like ten fingers,
keep it on, ten fingers, and so I brought that
into college.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
That was my mindset.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I was like, as long as I have ten I
could count on ten finkers. And so going back to
your point of purity culture and just all of that,
it's deeply embedded. And like, I don't believe it's going
anywhere either. I think it's an evergreen conversation.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah, it is so evergreen. And I've heard the ten
fingers thing too. Oh if it's one and ten fingers,
and they're like, oh, that's too much, right, Like do you
not want a partner who knows about their body and
knows how to communicate what their desires are? Because if
this person doesn't know how to communicate their desires or
is not able to please you, are you going to
seek the pleasure of somewhere else. It's just so and
(26:47):
so you still hear it now, right, I would assume
that people still bring it up So, Jana, where did
you learn this ten finger rule for the number of
sexual partners you should have in a lifetime?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
That was passed on from one of my aunties, and
that was passed on from her mother. So I remember
that conversation like it was yesterday, was before I was
going off to campus, and it was like ten fingers.
I was like, you know what, that makes sense? But
looking back, it perpetuating sex negativity, and like everything that
(27:18):
you just stated about what's being sex negative is yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
My mom will even like God bless her, she'll say
things like I can count enough people I've been on
one hand. Right, does that mean going to have it?
What does that translate into? I don't even know what
that means? What does it mean? What is the badge
of honor? There? Right? Again, I'm sure that was ingrained
from her mother and her mother and her mother. Right.
And if you think about decades of the things that
(27:44):
women had to do in order to have some level
of security, being partnered and being married to a man
was one of those things. And if we think about
decades ago, our grandparents' grandparents, they wanted to marry a
woman who hadn't sexually debuted yet, and so I think
it's just this idea of desirability. Right, If I potentially
(28:05):
want to have this long term partnership, what are the
things that I can do to be more desirable? And
I think one of those things are not really exploring
yourself sexually. If I don't know the things that bring
me joy sexually, what pleasure really looks like for me,
and I enter into this lifelong covenant with someone i e. Marriage,
then whatever you do, I just got to take it
(28:26):
because I don't even know what pleasure looks like, you know,
So I might just let you hunch me at night,
because that's what they say I'm supposed to do. I
think a bridgeton, I don't know if you watched Queen
Charlotte or like, just like the examples of these women
who are just literally laying down to just pro create,
and they just look like they are not experiencing any
levels of joy, any levels of pleasure. That culture, I think,
(28:51):
still bleeds into many of the conversations that we're having now,
which is why the only way to describe it is antiquated.
We cannot keep talking about bod.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Accounts, right, I agree?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
How can college students or younger women navigate the shame
around their sexuality, their sexual activity, the negative messages that
they ever sived from family, friends, society. How can they
navigate it?
Speaker 3 (29:17):
It's hard. I would say, it's definitely hard because in
college you're still learning yourself. Right. We say to these people,
especially people who go to college traditionally at eighteen seventeen eighteen, like,
go forth, be Mary, make all these decisions. Know what
you want to do for the rest of your life.
The thing that I thought I wanted to do when
I entered college is absolutely not what I'm doing. I
(29:37):
didn't even know the type of work that I do exist.
And so I say all that, like, it's hard because
you're still learning yourself and a lot of people are
going into college very uninformed about sexual reproductive health, right,
And so I would say the shame comes when you're
not informed. I would also say having a good community
(30:00):
or resources or place it you can just ask questions too.
If you don't have information, you can ask questions. Having
a solid friend group, whether that be your friend group
from high school or people that you trust in college,
which I know that can look very different. I don't
necessarily think that you need to yell from the mountaintop
and what your sexual decisions are are the things that
(30:21):
you're exploring or the people whom you're choosing to be
intimate with. And so I think I would say like,
as you're figuring it out, keep it close to yourself
and or people that you trust. And I know trusting
friends can be something that is very challenging for a
college student to figure out. But once you find your community,
really hold on to that community and talk with them
(30:44):
about what it is that you're thinking and feeling, because
not times out of ten you're not the only right.
You might just be the first to initiate the.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Conversation exactly how can lgbtqiaplus students find sex and resources
specific to their identity?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, such a good question. I think that the Internet
is a great resource, but I would encourage folks to
check out plantparenthood dot org. There's so much information around that,
I think sexual health resources. Whether you want to engage
in oral or rational sex, there's going to be always
information about different types of safe sex practices and or
devices that a person can use. Now, is that information
(31:21):
going to be cognizant of talking about body parts and
not necessarily use gender language, maybe not. And so I
would encourage a person who identifies with being LGBTQ plus
to just look for resources that talk about the different
types of safe sex practices that you might be engaging in.
Whatever that looks like. Yeah, that would be my advice.
(31:43):
But I always say plant parenthood is a great place
to start.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Gotcha, I'm curious to know what are some signs of
sexual abuse? Are Black women more susceptible to sexual abuse
and other groups?
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah? Good question. It's such a hard question because I think,
again back to this idea of sexual reproductive health education
or just education. I don't think people are really clear
about what sexual abuse looks like, other than what we
see on special victims, you know, what we see on
TV shows, which are oftentimes very extreme circumstances. I would
(32:19):
say educating yourself on what sexual abuse looks like. You know,
even basic to sexual harassment. What is sexual harassment? If
you are walking down the street and someone grazes you
and or touches you at a party and you don't
necessarily care for that, that is a form of sexual harassment,
you know. And so I think at minimum we need
to educate ourselves Black women for sure, College students even
(32:43):
more about what is sexual abuse? What a sexual harassment?
What is it to be sexually violated? Because I think
oftentimes people just go to the extreme, like forced into force,
which is not necessarily always the case. There are also
smaller things that might happen that maybe you may be
comfortable with. And I think about when I was in college,
which wasn't that long time ago. What it's a different
(33:05):
like that was a little while ago, but some of
the things that went on in parties or in the
door rooms, it's like, oh wait, this is not okay
and could potentially be a form of sexual harassment. But
people just weren't informed, and so at minimum, I would
say get informed. Anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, anything
that is a violation of your boundary, whatever that physical
(33:26):
boundary is, that's a violation. It could potentially be a
form of sexual harassment, assault, abuse, et cetera. Obviously, bruising
is an indicator. I would also say if you have
a friend who is isolating themselves, that can be an
indicator of some form of abuse or even interpersonal violence
(33:47):
with a partner. And so isolation if you notice it's
just a difference in like the way that they're carrying themselves,
like maybe they seem a little bit more down, they're
not in a good space, and or the way in
which maybe they're talking about their partner or specific day
or time. I think all of those can be indicators
that person may have had a negative experience.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Gotcha, How can a friend or a family member best
show up for someone who they think has experienced sexual
abuse or assault or harassment?
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Yes, I think the best thing to do is listen, listen,
believe that survivor ask them what the support looked like.
I think sometimes we want to just be fixers. I
know for me that's like, Okay, what do I need
to do? How can I fix it? But I think
asking them what support looks like if they don't know,
because a lot of times we don't even know what
we want as support, I would say just showing up
(34:42):
as a friend checking in. You certainly want to believe
you definitely don't want a victim blame, right. I think again,
back to this culture of things that we were reared to,
Well what were you wearing? Well, what did you say
were you drinking? Did you say you were okay with it?
At two pm? But now at ten pm, you're not
okay what they will now consent is gone, right, don't
(35:03):
victim blame, Listen, provide support, remain available, and just show
whatever they need be there for them. I think just
listening and not victim blaming is going to be two
critical things with supporting a loved one who may have
experienced some type of violation.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
I love that, and I think it's important just to
recognize how common it is on these campuses than we
think that it occurs, and that we need to support
a friend or a friend of a friend. It's so common,
And so I love all the tips that you just
gave because I wish I would have had more of
those while in.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
School for sure. Same same, more from our conversation after
the break.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
How can school admin better support college students who've experienced
concerns about their sexuality orxual assault?
Speaker 3 (36:01):
I think admin can do like a way better job educating.
I feel like freshmen should have to take courses around
sexual reproductive health like legit, because most of these young
people have did not get it when they were in
high school, and then you send them to college and
it's a free for all, and so I think that
there should be a requirement for sexual reproductive health education
(36:23):
your first semester freshman. Yeah, the same way they make
you take those freshmen like basic classes where they try
to teach you time management. Child. I think there needs
to be and embedding of sexual reproductive health. Like I
think about all the policies that I have learned about now,
like title nine in my adult life doing this work,
And I'm like, I'm sure I did the orientation video
(36:45):
where I just clicked through, click through, click through, But
I don't remember ever having access to resources in a
way that I knew what my rights were as a student,
and or I felt informed and encouraged to share if
ever I had been violated it, or know where to
go other than to go to the campus police. Who
do I go to? Are there conflence services that I
(37:06):
can access to really explore was I actually violated? What
about consent? Oh, my goodness. Outside of not being able
to spell consent, they most definitely don't know what consent
is right? What is consent? How do you know that
a person is happily agreeing to the thing? Can consent
(37:27):
be withdrawn? Absolutely? So? Again, if I send my boothing
a text message at two pm, and I'm like, oh,
it's on tonight after the party is lit. And then
after the party I'm like, I don't really want to,
and I say, no, you no longer have my consent, right.
I think about how many people in college engage in
sexual experiences while drunk, while on some type of narcotic
(37:50):
that is not consensual. It's legally not consensual, And so
I think a class of course where it's like, you
have to sit and do this. It's not a press
the next answer five questions, and now we have proof
that you take in this sexual harassment training, and that
is good for you for the next four plus years
that you're going to be in college. There needs to
be this not only happen in freshman year, but this
(38:12):
refresher in which we're reiterating to young people on college campuses.
Here's where your resources are, and remember, this is what
consent looks like, how to receive it and also how
to give it, because I think there's a lost conversation
around how do you give consent in a way that
you're comfortable with? And I think oftentimes you're like, oh, well,
(38:32):
did the guy get consent? He got consent, But are
we also making sure that we're educating our black and
brown girl on how to give consent or how to
refuse a sexual evance. I think all of that is lost,
and I think colleges can definitely do a better job
and making sure that their students are informed.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
I fully agree, and it's going off of consent. It's
super known that parties can be a place for students
can I have fun, but are also a place of
higher instances of sexual assault. We often hear advice you
know you protect your drinks, you're in a group. What
are some other tips or pieces of advice that you
(39:09):
can give to students to stay vigilant in such settings?
Speaker 3 (39:13):
I would say code words see your friends. Oh girl.
I'm thinking about when I was in college and I
started undergrad in two thousand and six, and I remember
my mom saying things to me like, oh, make sure
you cover your drink, and like, I just don't think
roofie was a thing. When I was in college. There
was definitely a cause, like I'm not going to the
bar and leaving my drink uncovered because like, people are weird.
(39:35):
But it's less about oh, you're gonna put a roofie
in my drink. And also like germs right, like just germs,
But I think cod words with your friends, right, like
we want to give our friends all time and be like, ooh, girl,
he kind of cute. You want to go home with
him or whatever, But like, hey, friend, when I say pineapples,
just get me out the situation. The dope part about
just now and technologies like you can share your locations
(39:56):
with your friends if you're going on a date with
someone that you haven't met. I also, I would say, obviously,
as best as you can stay coherent and aware, So
I wouldn't be unrealistic and say don't drink, especially if
you're of age over the age of twenty one and
year in college. I would be a hypocrite if I
said don't drink while you're turning up in college, right,
But being mindful of what your limits are, I would say,
(40:17):
knowing what your limits are, is it that third shot
that's gonna send you over the edge? Usually by college? Okay,
not the brown I'm not a brown girl. I'm a
light girl. Right, whatever type of alcohol you drink, just
being drinking and consuming whatever it is responsibly. I think
it's also important just so that you're in as best
of a sober mind to make decisions, and just being
(40:39):
around a community of people that you trust. Like I
know when I was at undergrad, if we came into
the club together, we are leaving together. There is no oh,
I'm about to go over here dip off with this
one to go to his room. No no, no, no no
no no no no no no, because you have enough
time from us leaving the club, go into the room
packing a little spending night bag. So now kind of
(41:00):
sober up a little bit and make decisions. So I
would say having a solid group of friends and community
and college is going to be really important. That can
also be your gauging point. Like since you sure you
want to do this, okay, all right, I respect you
will text me checking in. I think those things are
really really important.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
I love the code word. I love that I didn't
think about that. I love that you talked a little
bit about Title nine. But can you explain what Title
nine is and why might it be important for a
student to be aware of this law?
Speaker 3 (41:32):
So that's such a good question. So Title nine is
this law that really prohibits any type of sex based
discrimination in K through twelve as well as college schools.
We oftentimes see it in sports. We see it around
sexual assault cases in which survivors are trying to hold
the school responsible for whatever may have happened to them
when they were violated. We're seeing it a lot now
(41:55):
in a lot of the conversations, right trans young people
playing on whatever sports or having gender neutral bathroom, anything
that can be sex based discrimination is usually tied up
into title nine.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Gotcha, thank you for explaining that, doctor Thorne. What are
three to five things that students should keep in mind
when thinking about having safe sex?
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Again? I will say, no, you're basic anatomy, right, I
would say, be comfortable exploring what pleasure looks like to you,
whatever that means to you. And of course this is
for college aged folks, right, exploring what pleasure looks like
to you, know your anatomy, I would say, explore what
(42:38):
unintended pregnancy options may look like to you. If you're
engaging in vational sex, and it is this possibility to
get pregnant, Like, what are your pregnancy options? What is
your stance on there? Most certainly you want to explore
what contraceptive use looks like to you. Right, if you
are a female body person having sex with a male body, person,
(42:59):
there is a possibility for unintended pregnancy, So are you
going to only depend on that male body person to
use a condom? Are you interested in getting on hormonal
birth control? Are you interested in long term birth control
like the iuz or the implant that can stay in
for a couple of years, And so exploring what does
making those decisions around your body look like? I would
(43:20):
also say being open to again, what does sex, sexuality,
sexual expression, gender identity, sexual orientation look like it mean
to you, not what you were taught, not what you
were exposed to and your upbringing because we bring those
values into our college basis because that's all we know.
And so exploring what that looks like your basic anatomy,
(43:42):
exploring what pleasure looks like, exploring what your safe sex
practices will be right? Which ones do you want to explore?
Maybe you want to try the birth control fail you
didn't like how that made you feel, okay, maybe you'll
try something now on hormonal And then if you are
engaged in vaginal penal sex, like, what does the possibility
of pregnancy options look like for you? If you're choosing
(44:04):
not to use safe for sex practices? And the last
thing I will add is, at what frequency will you
go get tested get screened for STIs? Because what's important
if you are going to be sexually active that you
also are sexually responsible and screen yourself for possible infections. Right.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Do you have any recommended podcasts or books that we
should look into to deepen our knowledge on exploring your sexuality.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yeah, I'm not saying that college students don't read books,
but I'm saying that college students barely want to read
the book that they got for class. So I would
say some Instagram pages that I really appreciate is act Goodie.
Really enjoy Goodie's work. Sex with Ashley is also a
great ig page. One of my sister friends. Her work
is so dope because she really explores intimacy but with
(44:53):
the Christian lens for black women, so her name is
the Intimacy Firm. I would encourage folks to look at that.
I enjoy sham Boudrum. She also has a podcast called
Lovers and Friends and it's always great dialogue around sexuality relationships.
And then there's this podcast called Not Another Sex Podcast,
which is like such a perfect name for the podcast,
(45:14):
and they do some really good dialogues. As well around
sex and sexuality and pleasure. So I think those are
like really great starting points just to get information around
like exploring sexuality for a young adult at college. Just
try to figure this thing out one day at a time.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Right, something easy, quick digestible on my phone.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Back right. The other thing about books is like books
are really cool, but by the time the book is
probably published, some new information has came out, a new
term has come out, right, And so it's like I
think podcasts and even social media platforms are just the
easier way to get quick digestible information about a topic
of your choosing.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Right, And but back to your point, college, she didn't
have enough to read. I think on Instagram and Instagram page,
it's probably more for a college student. So I definitely
love that.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
You're on Instagram anyway.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Right, on Instagram anyway, TikTok, Instagram, all of it.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
Yes, exactly Where.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Can we keep up with you? What are your social
media handles and our website?
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Yes, so check me out. My Instagram is a miss
z lotus, So M I S S D E E
L O t U S please follow me tag me
I am a hoots. I think my Instagram is really
me walking in my most authentic self, so please feel
free to follow me. I'm also on LinkedIn if folks
wanted to have a conversation with me around just my
(46:40):
career trajectory, any support that I can provide for anyone
who's interested in the field of sexual reproductive health education.
My name on there is Daniella Thorn. So d is
in dog A n I E l l A. Last
name is Thorn's t isn't tom h O r n E.
I'm happy to connect with any young person, especially young
black girl that's just trying to be out here. You're
making it let's tap girl perfect.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Well, thank you so much for sharing this with us.
I appreciate it, Doctor Thorne.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Yes, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
I want to thank doctor Thorn once again for joining
us for this episode. Class is over for now, but
not before we assign homework from our conversation today. Take
the following notes home with you. Get tested often for
all sdis if you are sexually active, if you identify
as LGBTQI plus, seek out resources with credible organizations like
(47:42):
Planned Parenthood. Be open to exploring what your sexual identity is,
what pleasure means to you and what safe sex practices
work best for your body. To learn more about the
work doctor Thorn is doing, or to do more research
on this topic be short, visit Therapy for Blackgirls dot
com backslash t b g U. This episode was produced
(48:07):
by Frida Lucas, Elise Ellis, and Zaria Taylor. Editing is
by Dennison L.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Bradford
Congratulations, you've been accepted into the inaugural class of Therapy
for Black Girls University. Whether you're packing for a new
year on campus, thinking through your gap year, enrolling in
a community college, or grabbing your souls for graduation, Embarking
on the next chapter of your life is often exciting
(00:27):
but also a little scary. There can be a lot
of unknowns that can leave you feeling uncertain, and having
the right support can help you to feel confident and grounded.
TBGU was designed to help strengthen your voice, sharpen your knowledge,
and affirm who you are and who you'll become. Our
(00:50):
goal is to create relevant and accessible resources, content, and
experiences to help you thrive at this stage of your
life and beyond.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
More from our conversation after the break.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
If you thought we were reserving the Sex Positive September
celebrations for our Big Sister brand, you thought wrong. Welcome
to Sex Positive September TBGU style. My name is Jana
Ellis and I'm the TBG University Coordinator. You may remember
my voice from a previous TBGU episode, The Growing Pains
(01:30):
of Graduation. Doctor Joy has so kindly passed me the
mic to begin leading the TBGU series as your new
host and because we wanted to return with a bang.
In today's episode, we're talking all things sex in College.
Joining me today is sexual health education enthusiast doctor Daniella Thorne.
(01:53):
She has over twelve years of experience in sex education, research,
curriculum writing, direct service training, design, development and facilitation. Doctor
Thorn holds both a master's and doctoral degree in public
health and has dedicated her career to supporting the advancement
(02:14):
and institutionalization of inclusive, evidence informed, and comprehensive sexual health
education and school districts across the country. In our conversation today,
we break down what's missing from gen z's current discourse
around sex, what it means to practice sex positivity versus
sex negativity, and shed light on how friends and family
(02:38):
can support college students they suspect of suffering from sexual
abuse or harassment. Here's our conversation. Very excited to chat
with you, doctor Thorne.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Awesome, Thank you, Good morning. I'm so happy to be
here with you all.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yes, good morning. So you are a sexual health expert
who has worked closely with youth and developing culturally competent
sex education curricula, to start, can you tell our audience
what degrees you have, what do you have them in,
and how all these degrees have informed your work.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yes, well, I'm so happy you act. So I went
to school a lot, right, So I have a bachelor's
in human biology Bachelor's of Science from the University at
Albany in upstate New York. I also have a master's
in public health with a concentration in health policy and management,
also from the University at Albany. And then lastly, the
spirit moved me to get a doctoral degree from Georgia
(03:35):
Southern University. I have a Doctor of Public Health with
a focus in community health and education. So that is
a little bit of my educational history.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Lovely, Well, can you walk us through what inspired you
to work with youth and sexual health advocacy?
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, great question. I was always interested in team pregnancy prevention.
And then after I got my master's degree, someone have
reached to me to be a long term sub for
biology at a charter school. So I was like, okay,
make a little extra coin during the master's program the
girls meet the coin, and so I did that one mornings,
maybe for like two or three periods, and I really
(04:11):
enjoyed it. My mom is an educator, she's a retired
educator in New York City school. So I always had
an aversion to education in regards to teaching in the
traditional sense, but I enjoyed bio kinda. But I noticed
that the young girls, who were predominantly black and brown
girls right from Auburney, New York, they always had questions
about their bodies. And at the time, I was in
my early twenties. So they told me as like big cousin,
(04:34):
who happens to be the bioteacher. And so once I
completed my master's program, I had asked the principle if
I could teach a public health course, and she really
gave me the true autonomy to develop the course and
pilot it, and so I was able to really embed
a lot of the answers that the youth were asking
me into the course outline. And I fell in love
(04:55):
with sexual reproductive health. Like I was like, oh girl,
you do not out your regina. Let's talk about anatomy, right,
Let's talk about hygiene. Let's talk about all the things
that they used to come up and just talk to
me about their partners and how do they navigate safe
sex practices, and so I was able to embed that
in my classroom and also bring in culturally competent things
(05:16):
that can land with my girls. Right, So we're dissecting
hip hop songs that I know that they're listening to,
and we're talking about how does misogyny show up, right,
and where do we get these ideas? Oh my goodness,
at the time, thought had become a thing. I don't
know if you ever know that word. I might be
aging myself now, but I didn't even know what that
word meant. And so just talking about like, what does
(05:37):
that even mean? How do we determine whether someone is that?
And just really unpacking those things. And so that's truly
where I fell in love with education, sexual reproductive health
education with young people, particularly my black brown girls. And
then I got to a place of like, I don't
want to do this for the rest of my life.
So how do I position myself to be in spaces
(05:58):
and to be in rooms in which we're talking sexide
curricula for people that look like me? Right, because we
cannot continue to take the cookie cutter approach and not
have the conversations. Now, in hindsight, I didn't have to
go get a doctorate for all of that and the
Cruity student loans. But I decided to do that, and
I'm grateful for what I did because now it's something
one you can't take away from me into when I'm
(06:19):
having the conversations, I have the theory to really back
the things that I'm saying, and it positions me to
then now train educators who are going to go into
classrooms in ways that they can be more inclusive, be
more values neutrals when they're getting ready to teach sex
at how health education to the young people. So that's
a little bit of my trajectory and how I fell
into sexual reductive health for young people.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
I love that. I adore that, and I think it's
so important to have the teachers or the professors that
are like cool with you enough to have those conversations
and to open you up to questions you didn't know
you had. So I love that in your dissertation you
talked and you exe adolescent perspectives on sexual health education
(07:03):
curricula within the respective Georgia schools. Can you briefly talk
with us through your study and share some key insights
that you've gathered from that research.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah, so part of the doctor process for me was
to complete a dissertation. And a dissertation is essentially a
novel study in which you look up a thing. It
should be based in theory and no one has ever
explored it before. Right, That's essentially what it's today. You
write a really long book to like defend the things
that you explored. So I knew I wanted to work
(07:36):
with young people. What I didn't consider was that I
went to school in a very, very rural town in Georgia.
Like talk about trusting the Lord. I never visited this school.
I saw that they had a focus in community health education.
I was like, yep, this sounds good. This curriculum makes sense.
I'm gonna apply. They let me in, gave me a fellowship.
(07:57):
I moved to Statesboro, Georgia, and I'm talking about cotton
feels on the side. Thankfully they had a Walmart, and
I'm like, girl's supposed to be here for three years.
This was the stupidest decision I had ever made, but
I quit my job. I'm here now. And so I
went into this very rural Bible Belt city saying, hey, y'all,
(08:18):
I'm the girl from Brooklyn who wants to study sexual
reproductive health. And these are in spaces where the health
pe teacher also happens to be the deacon of the
whatever church is local, right, And so I remember my
dissertation chair saying, you sure you're going to get this
research done here, and I'm like, well, baby, that's what
I came for. So I was able to do four
(08:39):
focused groups with young people ages fourteen to eighteen to
really explore their perception of facilitators and barriers to accessing
sexual reproductive health education in their schools, and then also
their perception of what are the positives of getting sex
set in schools, what are the possible negatives. At the
time the area that my cohort came from, they were
(09:00):
still getting abstinence only sex ad honey, and like it
is twenty and fifty, Like come on, and so they're
still doing abstinence only And I just was like, Okay,
we know how teachers feel. There's a lot of research
on how parents feel. There's a lot of research about
administrators communities, but like, y'all talk to the kids. You
never have anybody talk to the kids. And so it
(09:21):
was so awesome to have a conversation with the young people,
just candid conversations focus groups really to get rich data
about what their desires were, and many of them had
same concerns. So they found that their barriers were oftentimes educators.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Right.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Teachers are uncomfortable talking to young people about sex, which
makes the young people feel uncomfortable to ask questions. They
found that parents can sometimes be advocates for sex said,
but they also can be hinderanced. Right, I don't want
my child, My baby don't need to learn about that.
My baby won't ever, and that's usually the baby that
is ever right. And also, just like administrators, they found
(09:57):
that community members have to really advocate and we see
that now all these years later. If the community and
the parents are advocating for some level of comprehensive sex
education in the school systems, usually the school districts have
to meet that need. So it was really dope to
be able to get that information from the young people,
talk to the young people, and thankfully enough that particular
(10:17):
district ended up adopting a more inclusive sex at curriculum.
I wouldn't say because of my dissertation work, there was
already community like advocacy happening on the ground roots around
changing the curriculum, and so my dissertation happened at like
a pivotal time where I was like, oh, I got
to collect this data before they change everything, which is
like a great thing, but also I got to get
(10:39):
up out of here, right, And so that was what
my research was around. I love that.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So can you explain or dive into what does inclusive
sex ed look like?
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, so inclusive sex ed, comprehensive sex ed looks like
age and stage appropriate information for young people and that
means a lot of things. So that means at kindergarten,
we are talking to our young people about boundaries, right,
what does a good boundary look like? If so, this
is your circle of space. If someone doesn't want to
(11:13):
be in your circle of space, you got to check it.
Can I give you a hug? May I borrow your pencil?
Can I borrow your blanket? For nap time? That's in
the elementary level or even kindergarten, and then it goes
all the way through the life course and so conference
and sex education. We're not teaching kindergarteners about safe sex practices, right,
We're saving that for later years because we want to
(11:34):
make sure it's agent stage appropriate. But exploring your sexuality
and human growth and development is literally a part of
the human experience. And so we're not going to wait
till high school to talk about puberty when many of
our young people are experiencing changes to their body physically, emotionally, mentally,
perhaps in late elementary fifth grade, and so it's having
conversations around basic anatomy, safe sex practices, boundaries, decision making,
(12:00):
refusal skills. I think people oftentimes they're just like, say
no to sex, say no to drugs. But what do
you do when you actually want to have sex with
your partner? How do you say no when you actually
do have the desire, Right, it's easier to say no
the stranger, but if you're a partnered then you want
to express your love in that way. How do you
do that? How do you negotiate common usage, How do
you have conversations around decision making with your partner? Right?
(12:24):
How do you explore pregnancy options? And of course these
are topics that will come up later on, perhaps in
high school, but it's really across the life course. Our
bodies are consistently changing. For that fourth grade person who
might be developing breast tissue. Do they even know what
breast tissue is? When they get their cycles? Do they
know how to change your sanitary products? If no one
has ever told them that, Hey, there's going to come
(12:46):
a point where you're going to start and now you're like,
oh my gosh, I'm dying a little bit. There's blood
coming from parts of my body that doesn't make sense.
So it's just teaching people about their bodies and really
normalizing that it is a part of the life. Of course,
that your body is going to continue to change. Jes
desires are normal. And also exploring gender identity, sexual orientation,
(13:07):
all those things, all all of it put a nice
bow on it. Those are topics that show up in
inclusive sex education. I love that.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
So we talked about like what does inclusive sex ed
look like? But what does exploring it look like? What
does exploring your sexuality look like?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Okay, I think exploring your sexuality looks like what does
pleasure look like to you?
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Right?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
So exploring your sexuality is what feels good to me?
When do I feel the most sexiest, what do I
feel the most confident? Who are the people that I'm
enjoying sharing intimate space? With right. What clothes make me feel?
You know, there's a cere materary. You know, for some
it might be some satin pajamas that you just put
it on. You're like, wow, I'm given today? And so
(13:51):
what does pleasure look like to you? And pleasure isn't
always physical intercourse? Pleasure can be just feeling good and
confident about yourself. What are the things that make you
feel the most confident, that bring you joy? And also
exploring sexualities to me is whom are you attracted to?
Perhaps what type of sex do you enjoy to have?
(14:12):
And then I would say unlearning some of the biases
that you may have been taught around sexuality, whether we
realize it or not. Our upbringing, there are so many
values that are embedded in us, from our homes where
we're rare, the communities in which we grow up, in
the music that we listen to. I grew up with
(14:32):
a mom who loved those I'm talking about Arry White,
Lutha Vangels. I will send you a Luther Vanders going down. Okay?
That music also embeds little things and values about sex
and sexuality, and so exploring what those biases are. Do
you hold these values or were these values superimposed on you?
All of that is exploration, and I think it's constant.
(14:54):
I'm a thirty five year old woman who even now,
I'm like, huh, do I have that because I have
that opinion? Or is it because I grew up in
a Caribbean household and like I just had no other
choice but to have that opinion. So I would say
learning exploring, but also for some it is unlearning.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yes, I'm curious to know what is sex positivity? Can
you elaborate on what that looks like? I am so
excited for this answer. For me, I am new to
sex positivity and so wanting to just learn, Like what
does that mean?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
The terms are forever changing. To me, sex positivity is
like really showing up as your most authentic, having the
most agency about your sexual decision making. And I would
say consensual sexual decision making really free of like bias
or judgment, right, Like, this is who I am, This
is what makes me feel good. These are the sexual
(15:49):
decisions that I make. I am communicating my desires to
my partners. I am exploring fantasies. I am advocating for
myself and my sexual health. Perhaps when I'm with my clinician, like,
I am just walking in my most authentic sexual being self.
If I want to wear my sat in pajamas to
sleep because it's gonna make me feel good, I'm gonna
(16:10):
do those things. I think it's like having true autonomy
and agency around your sexual decision. And to me, that's
what sex positivity is. And you know, some people choose
to share those things out broadly and others shoes not
to you. So to me, that's what it is to
be sex positive, really walking in your desires and feeling
confident and comfortable in your decision making around sex and sexuality.
(16:32):
A lot of the things that folks would say would
be sex positive, right, would be like, that's not lady
like now, people don't need to know you know now,
don't share that too much. You keep that for marriage, right,
And then you get into purity culture and all those things.
So it's a really interesting concept to kind of wrap
your mind around.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
But what do you think is missing from gen Z's
current discourse around sex positivity on social media?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Oh my god, I think what is so amazing about
gen Z is that there's a level of confidence and
like sex positivity. For sure, they walk in their purpose.
They obviously naturally have access to way more information than
I could even fathom having at that time. But I
just think that because of social media, there is just
(17:20):
so much perpetuation of misinformation, and so there is this
like sometimes I would say misinformation or disinformation. Sometimes it's intentional,
other times I just think that it's like this is
literally not true. But if you can get viral enough
and get enough people to follow you on TikTok or
you get that SoundBite that goes to the shade room,
(17:40):
now people will be googling the thing that was literally
not true. And so it's like, what's missing to me
is just this fact based information Because as much as
gen Z is out here doing amazing things, gen Z
is also a generation that didn't necessarily have access to
conference with sex at at least school based conference with
sex at right, And so you theory, you ask Google,
(18:01):
you talk to Alexa to get some information that you
may not have, and there could just be this crazy
perpetuation of false information. And I think that's what's missing, Like,
how do you go back to the fact to ensure
that the things that you're saying are indeed correct? Right?
Catching an see sitting on a toilet seed, You're not
going to get that. But I guarantee you if a
(18:23):
celebrity or someone who has a following accidentally says something
like that, there is someone who is not going to
do the fact checking. Now the world thinks that this
is the truth, right, and now we've lost everyone because
now for this forty eight hours on Instagram, there are
gonna be people who walk away feeling like this falsehood
(18:43):
is true. And I think that's what's missing the fact checking.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Can you list and debunk some of the common misconceptions
that you're speaking about.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Yes, oh, such a good question. I would say, literally,
how do people potentially expose themselves to sexually transmit the FF?
I think we saw this even with COVID or monkey
popster Like people just really lack basic understanding. Granted I
have several public health degrees, but like basic understanding of
how things are transmitted to person to person. I think
(19:14):
that there is a lack of information on particularly backsterial infections.
So if you get community at once, you can't get
in here, and you can unless you complete t your antibiotics.
I think there's a lot of information missing there, Like
there's a lot of information missing around basic anatomy. I
follow those page on Instagram and they go around and
they ask male presenting people questions around female anatomy, like
(19:37):
what is the different sizes of tampon stand for? And
some of their responses, I'm like, not in twenty twenty
three are y'all saying it's the size of the vagina.
So I think there also is just a basic misunderstanding
of anatomy. The conversation about like permiscuity and just number
of people you've had sex with. Is that an indicator
of your sexual reproductive health status and wellness? No? So
(20:00):
I just think there's so many myths that just need
to be debunked.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I think that is amazing, and I want to get
a bit negative. So can you describe what is sex negativity?
Like what does it mean to be sex negative? How
does that show up in our daily lives? Can you
describe what that looks like for the everyday person, because
I'm sure it's more common than what we're thinking.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I think any common statement that is based in misogyny,
purity culture, the patriarchy, anything that has to do with
like the sexist like women should this right, men can
do this, but girls should do this. If they do that,
then they are this. I think all of that is
sex negative. Anything that does not concern you in your body,
(20:48):
in your part, that you have to say about someone
else's decision making is negative. Any stereotypes that are perpetuated
around a person, their body, their jenneral identity, their sexual
orientation is sex negative. Because the whole idea about sex
positivity is like free of shame, right, Like you are
who you are, and you make your sexual reductive health
(21:10):
decisions unashamed, very clearly, and you're making these decisions for you,
yourself and perhaps your partner. I think anything that is
sex negative is not mine of your business drinking your
water and minding other people's private parts, right, because what
someone does is especially if I'm not being intimate with them,
it's literally none of my business. However, a lot of
(21:33):
the music that we listen to right is based in
sex negativity. If you just think about the discourse that
we see on social media around sex, it's so based
in purity culture, like I'm not marrying a person that
has had X or this, Like it is so deeply ingrained.
And that's why when we were talking about exploring one
(21:53):
sexuality or even sex positivity. I was saying, some of
it is unlearning because I think in general, a lot
of the rhetoric that we are taught, and I also
speak specifically for me being Caribbean and being Christian, it
is based in a culture that probably a white man outlined,
and we have just been listening to it for our
(22:15):
entire lives. And so we believe that women should be
this and men should be that, and men definitely have
the ability to explore their sexuality and sow their royal Oh,
but a woman should just be deep and allow a
man to please them. I was listening to this podcast
a couple months ago, and I move my mind and
the question was when the sex end? And I just
(22:36):
think about, like the movies, the TV show sex ends
when the man climaxes, the man climaxes, and then sex
is over. And I'm like, what do you do? What
a concept? But that's what's perpetuated in the media, right
like this male present, a person climaxes and now the
experience is over. And so if you just think about
deeply all the message that we are taught around stereotypes
(22:59):
about men and women, et cetera. Who a lot of
it is sex negative and most of the burden to
be sexually I would say oppressed is all the women.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
More from our conversation after the break.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
So amongst our group chats, in our dorm rooms, in
our friend groups, we've heard this term body count and
discuss it's importance or lack thereof. What are your thoughts
(23:49):
on some of the discourse surrounding the amount of people
someone has had sex with.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
My thoughts is, like, y'all really be bored. There is
no way we are still talking about like throw out
the window. It is such an antiquated conversation, and I
find the people who are perpetuating this conversation are film misinformed,
because the real questions that you need to be asking
(24:15):
someone is when's the last time you've had a comprehensive
sexual reproductive health analysis a blood panel where we're exploring
your possibility of viral bacterial parazoa, Like, when's the last
time you've been tested for real? For real, don't just
tell me they just swapped you clmenty and gonnerhea, because
there's a lot of stuff out there other than that. Right,
(24:37):
that's the conversation a person can have one sexual partner,
no sexual partner, one hundred and fifty sexual partners, that
still is not an indicator of their health status. I
think the conversation is pregnancy options. If we are having sex,
if we're having vaginal unprotected sex or even protected sex,
there's a possibility of pregnancy. Let's have a conversation about
(24:58):
what are our thoughts about if we potentially have an
unintended pregnancy. What are your safe sex practices? That's the
question for me to ask, Right, are you on some
form of hormonal birth controls? Do you use condoms?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Like?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
What are we the number of people what? I just
think it's a very old conversation, again still based in misogyny,
because I don't think that women are asking men these questions.
Anytime that I've seen it come up, it is or mom,
when we got to only have X, Y and Z,
I'm not marrying nobody to have more than X, Y
(25:32):
and Z, and like also too, where are these numbers
coming from? You know? But at the same time, if
you have the perceptions could be if you have x
amount of partners on the higher spectrum of whatever this
spectrum is, that is just problematic. Does that mean that
you have more experience. It's just problematic and the conversation
has been very long standing. I do not think it's
(25:55):
going anywhere. And I think it's because this expectation of
like purity culture.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
I know, for me, it was always like ten fingers,
keep it on, ten fingers, and so I brought that
into college.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
That was my mindset.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
I was like, as long as I have ten I
could count on ten finkers. And so going back to
your point of purity culture and just all of that,
it's deeply embedded. And like, I don't believe it's going
anywhere either. I think it's an evergreen conversation.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah, it is so evergreen. And I've heard the ten
fingers thing too. Oh if it's one and ten fingers,
and they're like, oh, that's too much, right, Like do you
not want a partner who knows about their body and
knows how to communicate what their desires are? Because if
this person doesn't know how to communicate their desires or
is not able to please you, are you going to
seek the pleasure of somewhere else. It's just so and
(26:47):
so you still hear it now, right, I would assume
that people still bring it up So, Jana, where did
you learn this ten finger rule for the number of
sexual partners you should have in a lifetime?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
That was passed on from one of my aunties, and
that was passed on from her mother. So I remember
that conversation like it was yesterday, was before I was
going off to campus, and it was like ten fingers.
I was like, you know what, that makes sense? But
looking back, it perpetuating sex negativity, and like everything that
(27:18):
you just stated about what's being sex negative is yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
My mom will even like God bless her, she'll say
things like I can count enough people I've been on
one hand. Right, does that mean going to have it?
What does that translate into? I don't even know what
that means? What does it mean? What is the badge
of honor? There? Right? Again, I'm sure that was ingrained
from her mother and her mother and her mother. Right.
And if you think about decades of the things that
(27:44):
women had to do in order to have some level
of security, being partnered and being married to a man
was one of those things. And if we think about
decades ago, our grandparents' grandparents, they wanted to marry a
woman who hadn't sexually debuted yet, and so I think
it's just this idea of desirability. Right, If I potentially
(28:05):
want to have this long term partnership, what are the
things that I can do to be more desirable? And
I think one of those things are not really exploring
yourself sexually. If I don't know the things that bring
me joy sexually, what pleasure really looks like for me,
and I enter into this lifelong covenant with someone i e. Marriage,
then whatever you do, I just got to take it
(28:26):
because I don't even know what pleasure looks like, you know,
So I might just let you hunch me at night,
because that's what they say I'm supposed to do. I
think a bridgeton, I don't know if you watched Queen
Charlotte or like, just like the examples of these women
who are just literally laying down to just pro create,
and they just look like they are not experiencing any
levels of joy, any levels of pleasure. That culture, I think,
(28:51):
still bleeds into many of the conversations that we're having now,
which is why the only way to describe it is antiquated.
We cannot keep talking about bod.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Accounts, right, I agree?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
How can college students or younger women navigate the shame
around their sexuality, their sexual activity, the negative messages that
they ever sived from family, friends, society. How can they
navigate it?
Speaker 3 (29:17):
It's hard. I would say, it's definitely hard because in
college you're still learning yourself. Right. We say to these people,
especially people who go to college traditionally at eighteen seventeen eighteen, like,
go forth, be Mary, make all these decisions. Know what
you want to do for the rest of your life.
The thing that I thought I wanted to do when
I entered college is absolutely not what I'm doing. I
(29:37):
didn't even know the type of work that I do exist.
And so I say all that, like, it's hard because
you're still learning yourself and a lot of people are
going into college very uninformed about sexual reproductive health, right,
And so I would say the shame comes when you're
not informed. I would also say having a good community
(30:00):
or resources or place it you can just ask questions too.
If you don't have information, you can ask questions. Having
a solid friend group, whether that be your friend group
from high school or people that you trust in college,
which I know that can look very different. I don't
necessarily think that you need to yell from the mountaintop
and what your sexual decisions are are the things that
(30:21):
you're exploring or the people whom you're choosing to be
intimate with. And so I think I would say like,
as you're figuring it out, keep it close to yourself
and or people that you trust. And I know trusting
friends can be something that is very challenging for a
college student to figure out. But once you find your community,
really hold on to that community and talk with them
(30:44):
about what it is that you're thinking and feeling, because
not times out of ten you're not the only right.
You might just be the first to initiate the.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Conversation exactly how can lgbtqiaplus students find sex and resources
specific to their identity?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, such a good question. I think that the Internet
is a great resource, but I would encourage folks to
check out plantparenthood dot org. There's so much information around that,
I think sexual health resources. Whether you want to engage
in oral or rational sex, there's going to be always
information about different types of safe sex practices and or
devices that a person can use. Now, is that information
(31:21):
going to be cognizant of talking about body parts and
not necessarily use gender language, maybe not. And so I
would encourage a person who identifies with being LGBTQ plus
to just look for resources that talk about the different
types of safe sex practices that you might be engaging in.
Whatever that looks like. Yeah, that would be my advice.
(31:43):
But I always say plant parenthood is a great place
to start.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Gotcha, I'm curious to know what are some signs of
sexual abuse? Are Black women more susceptible to sexual abuse
and other groups?
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah? Good question. It's such a hard question because I think,
again back to this idea of sexual reproductive health education
or just education. I don't think people are really clear
about what sexual abuse looks like, other than what we
see on special victims, you know, what we see on
TV shows, which are oftentimes very extreme circumstances. I would
(32:19):
say educating yourself on what sexual abuse looks like. You know,
even basic to sexual harassment. What is sexual harassment? If
you are walking down the street and someone grazes you
and or touches you at a party and you don't
necessarily care for that, that is a form of sexual harassment,
you know. And so I think at minimum we need
to educate ourselves Black women for sure, College students even
(32:43):
more about what is sexual abuse? What a sexual harassment?
What is it to be sexually violated? Because I think
oftentimes people just go to the extreme, like forced into force,
which is not necessarily always the case. There are also
smaller things that might happen that maybe you may be
comfortable with. And I think about when I was in college,
which wasn't that long time ago. What it's a different
(33:05):
like that was a little while ago, but some of
the things that went on in parties or in the
door rooms, it's like, oh wait, this is not okay
and could potentially be a form of sexual harassment. But
people just weren't informed, and so at minimum, I would
say get informed. Anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, anything
that is a violation of your boundary, whatever that physical
(33:26):
boundary is, that's a violation. It could potentially be a
form of sexual harassment, assault, abuse, et cetera. Obviously, bruising
is an indicator. I would also say if you have
a friend who is isolating themselves, that can be an
indicator of some form of abuse or even interpersonal violence
(33:47):
with a partner. And so isolation if you notice it's
just a difference in like the way that they're carrying themselves,
like maybe they seem a little bit more down, they're
not in a good space, and or the way in
which maybe they're talking about their partner or specific day
or time. I think all of those can be indicators
that person may have had a negative experience.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Gotcha, How can a friend or a family member best
show up for someone who they think has experienced sexual
abuse or assault or harassment?
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Yes, I think the best thing to do is listen, listen,
believe that survivor ask them what the support looked like.
I think sometimes we want to just be fixers. I
know for me that's like, Okay, what do I need
to do? How can I fix it? But I think
asking them what support looks like if they don't know,
because a lot of times we don't even know what
we want as support, I would say just showing up
(34:42):
as a friend checking in. You certainly want to believe
you definitely don't want a victim blame, right. I think again,
back to this culture of things that we were reared to,
Well what were you wearing? Well, what did you say
were you drinking? Did you say you were okay with it?
At two pm? But now at ten pm, you're not
okay what they will now consent is gone, right, don't
(35:03):
victim blame, Listen, provide support, remain available, and just show
whatever they need be there for them. I think just
listening and not victim blaming is going to be two
critical things with supporting a loved one who may have
experienced some type of violation.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
I love that, and I think it's important just to
recognize how common it is on these campuses than we
think that it occurs, and that we need to support
a friend or a friend of a friend. It's so common,
And so I love all the tips that you just
gave because I wish I would have had more of
those while in.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
School for sure. Same same, more from our conversation after
the break.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
How can school admin better support college students who've experienced
concerns about their sexuality orxual assault?
Speaker 3 (36:01):
I think admin can do like a way better job educating.
I feel like freshmen should have to take courses around
sexual reproductive health like legit, because most of these young
people have did not get it when they were in
high school, and then you send them to college and
it's a free for all, and so I think that
there should be a requirement for sexual reproductive health education
(36:23):
your first semester freshman. Yeah, the same way they make
you take those freshmen like basic classes where they try
to teach you time management. Child. I think there needs
to be and embedding of sexual reproductive health. Like I
think about all the policies that I have learned about now,
like title nine in my adult life doing this work,
And I'm like, I'm sure I did the orientation video
(36:45):
where I just clicked through, click through, click through, But
I don't remember ever having access to resources in a
way that I knew what my rights were as a student,
and or I felt informed and encouraged to share if
ever I had been violated it, or know where to
go other than to go to the campus police. Who
do I go to? Are there conflence services that I
(37:06):
can access to really explore was I actually violated? What
about consent? Oh, my goodness. Outside of not being able
to spell consent, they most definitely don't know what consent
is right? What is consent? How do you know that
a person is happily agreeing to the thing? Can consent
(37:27):
be withdrawn? Absolutely? So? Again, if I send my boothing
a text message at two pm, and I'm like, oh,
it's on tonight after the party is lit. And then
after the party I'm like, I don't really want to,
and I say, no, you no longer have my consent, right.
I think about how many people in college engage in
sexual experiences while drunk, while on some type of narcotic
(37:50):
that is not consensual. It's legally not consensual, And so
I think a class of course where it's like, you
have to sit and do this. It's not a press
the next answer five questions, and now we have proof
that you take in this sexual harassment training, and that
is good for you for the next four plus years
that you're going to be in college. There needs to
be this not only happen in freshman year, but this
(38:12):
refresher in which we're reiterating to young people on college campuses.
Here's where your resources are, and remember, this is what
consent looks like, how to receive it and also how
to give it, because I think there's a lost conversation
around how do you give consent in a way that
you're comfortable with? And I think oftentimes you're like, oh, well,
(38:32):
did the guy get consent? He got consent, But are
we also making sure that we're educating our black and
brown girl on how to give consent or how to
refuse a sexual evance. I think all of that is lost,
and I think colleges can definitely do a better job
and making sure that their students are informed.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
I fully agree, and it's going off of consent. It's
super known that parties can be a place for students
can I have fun, but are also a place of
higher instances of sexual assault. We often hear advice you
know you protect your drinks, you're in a group. What
are some other tips or pieces of advice that you
(39:09):
can give to students to stay vigilant in such settings?
Speaker 3 (39:13):
I would say code words see your friends. Oh girl.
I'm thinking about when I was in college and I
started undergrad in two thousand and six, and I remember
my mom saying things to me like, oh, make sure
you cover your drink, and like, I just don't think
roofie was a thing. When I was in college. There
was definitely a cause, like I'm not going to the
bar and leaving my drink uncovered because like, people are weird.
(39:35):
But it's less about oh, you're gonna put a roofie
in my drink. And also like germs right, like just germs,
But I think cod words with your friends, right, like
we want to give our friends all time and be like, ooh, girl,
he kind of cute. You want to go home with
him or whatever, But like, hey, friend, when I say pineapples,
just get me out the situation. The dope part about
just now and technologies like you can share your locations
(39:56):
with your friends if you're going on a date with
someone that you haven't met. I also, I would say, obviously,
as best as you can stay coherent and aware, So
I wouldn't be unrealistic and say don't drink, especially if
you're of age over the age of twenty one and
year in college. I would be a hypocrite if I
said don't drink while you're turning up in college, right,
But being mindful of what your limits are, I would say,
(40:17):
knowing what your limits are, is it that third shot
that's gonna send you over the edge? Usually by college? Okay,
not the brown I'm not a brown girl. I'm a
light girl. Right, whatever type of alcohol you drink, just
being drinking and consuming whatever it is responsibly. I think
it's also important just so that you're in as best
of a sober mind to make decisions, and just being
(40:39):
around a community of people that you trust. Like I
know when I was at undergrad, if we came into
the club together, we are leaving together. There is no oh,
I'm about to go over here dip off with this
one to go to his room. No no, no, no no
no no no no no no, because you have enough
time from us leaving the club, go into the room
packing a little spending night bag. So now kind of
(41:00):
sober up a little bit and make decisions. So I
would say having a solid group of friends and community
and college is going to be really important. That can
also be your gauging point. Like since you sure you
want to do this, okay, all right, I respect you
will text me checking in. I think those things are
really really important.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
I love the code word. I love that I didn't
think about that. I love that you talked a little
bit about Title nine. But can you explain what Title
nine is and why might it be important for a
student to be aware of this law?
Speaker 3 (41:32):
So that's such a good question. So Title nine is
this law that really prohibits any type of sex based
discrimination in K through twelve as well as college schools.
We oftentimes see it in sports. We see it around
sexual assault cases in which survivors are trying to hold
the school responsible for whatever may have happened to them
when they were violated. We're seeing it a lot now
(41:55):
in a lot of the conversations, right trans young people
playing on whatever sports or having gender neutral bathroom, anything
that can be sex based discrimination is usually tied up
into title nine.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Gotcha, thank you for explaining that, doctor Thorne. What are
three to five things that students should keep in mind
when thinking about having safe sex?
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Again? I will say, no, you're basic anatomy, right, I
would say, be comfortable exploring what pleasure looks like to you,
whatever that means to you. And of course this is
for college aged folks, right, exploring what pleasure looks like
to you, know your anatomy, I would say, explore what
(42:38):
unintended pregnancy options may look like to you. If you're
engaging in vational sex, and it is this possibility to
get pregnant, Like, what are your pregnancy options? What is
your stance on there? Most certainly you want to explore
what contraceptive use looks like to you. Right, if you
are a female body person having sex with a male body, person,
(42:59):
there is a possibility for unintended pregnancy, So are you
going to only depend on that male body person to
use a condom? Are you interested in getting on hormonal
birth control? Are you interested in long term birth control
like the iuz or the implant that can stay in
for a couple of years, And so exploring what does
making those decisions around your body look like? I would
(43:20):
also say being open to again, what does sex, sexuality,
sexual expression, gender identity, sexual orientation look like it mean
to you, not what you were taught, not what you
were exposed to and your upbringing because we bring those
values into our college basis because that's all we know.
And so exploring what that looks like your basic anatomy,
(43:42):
exploring what pleasure looks like, exploring what your safe sex
practices will be right? Which ones do you want to explore?
Maybe you want to try the birth control fail you
didn't like how that made you feel, okay, maybe you'll
try something now on hormonal And then if you are
engaged in vaginal penal sex, like, what does the possibility
of pregnancy options look like for you? If you're choosing
(44:04):
not to use safe for sex practices? And the last
thing I will add is, at what frequency will you
go get tested get screened for STIs? Because what's important
if you are going to be sexually active that you
also are sexually responsible and screen yourself for possible infections. Right.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
Do you have any recommended podcasts or books that we
should look into to deepen our knowledge on exploring your sexuality.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yeah, I'm not saying that college students don't read books,
but I'm saying that college students barely want to read
the book that they got for class. So I would
say some Instagram pages that I really appreciate is act Goodie.
Really enjoy Goodie's work. Sex with Ashley is also a
great ig page. One of my sister friends. Her work
is so dope because she really explores intimacy but with
(44:53):
the Christian lens for black women, so her name is
the Intimacy Firm. I would encourage folks to look at that.
I enjoy sham Boudrum. She also has a podcast called
Lovers and Friends and it's always great dialogue around sexuality relationships.
And then there's this podcast called Not Another Sex Podcast,
which is like such a perfect name for the podcast,
(45:14):
and they do some really good dialogues. As well around
sex and sexuality and pleasure. So I think those are
like really great starting points just to get information around
like exploring sexuality for a young adult at college. Just
try to figure this thing out one day at a time.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Right, something easy, quick digestible on my phone.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Back right. The other thing about books is like books
are really cool, but by the time the book is
probably published, some new information has came out, a new
term has come out, right, And so it's like I
think podcasts and even social media platforms are just the
easier way to get quick digestible information about a topic
of your choosing.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Right, And but back to your point, college, she didn't
have enough to read. I think on Instagram and Instagram page,
it's probably more for a college student. So I definitely
love that.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
You're on Instagram anyway.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
Right, on Instagram anyway, TikTok, Instagram, all of it.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
Yes, exactly Where.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Can we keep up with you? What are your social
media handles and our website?
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Yes, so check me out. My Instagram is a miss
z lotus, So M I S S D E E
L O t U S please follow me tag me
I am a hoots. I think my Instagram is really
me walking in my most authentic self, so please feel
free to follow me. I'm also on LinkedIn if folks
wanted to have a conversation with me around just my
(46:40):
career trajectory, any support that I can provide for anyone
who's interested in the field of sexual reproductive health education.
My name on there is Daniella Thorn. So d is
in dog A n I E l l A. Last
name is Thorn's t isn't tom h O r n E.
I'm happy to connect with any young person, especially young
black girl that's just trying to be out here. You're
making it let's tap girl perfect.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Well, thank you so much for sharing this with us.
I appreciate it, Doctor Thorne.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Yes, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
I want to thank doctor Thorn once again for joining
us for this episode. Class is over for now, but
not before we assign homework from our conversation today. Take
the following notes home with you. Get tested often for
all sdis if you are sexually active, if you identify
as LGBTQI plus, seek out resources with credible organizations like
(47:42):
Planned Parenthood. Be open to exploring what your sexual identity is,
what pleasure means to you and what safe sex practices
work best for your body. To learn more about the
work doctor Thorn is doing, or to do more research
on this topic be short, visit Therapy for Blackgirls dot
com backslash t b g U. This episode was produced
(48:07):
by Frida Lucas, Elise Ellis, and Zaria Taylor. Editing is
by Dennison L.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Bradford
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