I heard back from Judith Levine! She responded within a day of my email, which made me rather giddy. She's a hero of mine, and her Harmful to Minors: the Perils of Protecting Children from Sex was a great inspiration to me several years ago when I read it. Not only was she quite supportive of my endeavors, but gave me some resources to utilize in my research and to pursue for further activism with regards to the criminalization of children.
The biggest resource she sent me is a link to the Reform Sex Offender Laws site, already linked to Washington state's representative for these issues. As I study the media surrounding the labeling of children as sexual predators, I will be contacting the local representative to talk about ways in which I, and others, can get involved in changing legislation. The battle is a tough one, because no one wants to be seen as anti-child.
On Tuesday, I attended my first Campus Coalition for Sexual Literacy, which meets every other Tuesday from 3-4p.m. in the Q-Center. I met two people who already are big activists in sexual literacy. While much of our conversation involved a private discussion, some of our focus was on services we can provide for people on campus. We are planning both a more intimate, safe-space discussion for a topic (we brainstormed a number of topics to discuss), and an on-campus "Ask the Sexpert" styled event for spring in which we will make ourselves available in visible areas such as Red Square or the lawn in front of the HUB, and answer questions people ask us.
While there, I introduced myself, gave them some information about my skills, and let them know where I might be of use to them. I'm looking forward to the next meeting!
On this week's agenda:
1. Start reading Out in Public, which just arrived in the mail.
2. Contact RSOL in Washington.
3. Continue research on Children and Sexual Predator labels.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Harmful to Minors
Today I contacted Judith Levine, author of Harmful to Minors, which I read a few years ago and found to be one of the few voices speaking out against the hysteria that has culminated in our legal system and how we treat innocent, natural explorations of children and adolescent sexuality in a criminal manner. In this climate, preschoolers can be labeled as sex harassers for hugging a teacher, holding hands or a playground peck is now grounds for a lifelong sentence as a sexual predator, or at least close scrutiny within an elementary school that will slap it on a permanent record.
Since reading her book, Judith has become one of my heroes in the efforts to bring sanity and reason back to discussions about human sexuality in general, and within education in particular. My main query was to discover whether or not there are any groups, organizations, or otherwise actively seeking to counter these laws that punish children in incomprehensible ways. I hope that she will reply, though I imagine she receives a great inundation of emails on a regular basis, and am feeling like a nervous fangirl.
Before sending the email, I had already participated in an online discussion regarding a blog entry titled "Turning Kids Into Criminals" (found here). My response to someone who argued that the data seemed vague as did any real accounts of injustice:
Since reading her book, Judith has become one of my heroes in the efforts to bring sanity and reason back to discussions about human sexuality in general, and within education in particular. My main query was to discover whether or not there are any groups, organizations, or otherwise actively seeking to counter these laws that punish children in incomprehensible ways. I hope that she will reply, though I imagine she receives a great inundation of emails on a regular basis, and am feeling like a nervous fangirl.
Before sending the email, I had already participated in an online discussion regarding a blog entry titled "Turning Kids Into Criminals" (found here). My response to someone who argued that the data seemed vague as did any real accounts of injustice:
People often cite the ambiguous nature of teen years when one individual in a couple suddenly crosses that invisible "18" line and suddenly becomes a criminal. Or even teens under the age of 18 engaging in consensual, exploratory sex, a natural part of development, in which one partner (usually male) is prosecuted by the other partner's parents for rape. But the hysteria is far worse than that. There are growing reports from around the nation of elementary students, kindergartners, and even preschoolers being labeled sexual harassers by their schools or even brought up on legal charges by parents of so-called victims for simple shows of innocent affection like attempting a playground kiss or even for hugging a teacher. A three year old preschooler, just out of diapers will have a permanent mark as having engaged in inappropriate physical conduct throughout elementary school because he hugged a teacher. This is where these laws get completely out of hand. In Harmful to Minors, a book challenging many of our views on children, sexuality, and sex education, the author, Judith Levine, offers many examples in which our broad-based laws and rabid fear of anything remotely sexual among American youth has backfired. When holding hands, playground pecks, natural curiosity, and hugging is deemed worthy of criminal action, what are we teaching our children? Most schools do not even express in clearly defined ways what types of touch are appropriate, and which are grounds for potential legal action. In all of the fervor to "think of the children," it doesn't seem as though there is much "thinking" going on at all.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Beginning the Search
Before I began my search for articles for my bibliography, I had to address the internal issues facing me. Though my comfort zones and past experiences have given me a wealthy foundation of information about human sexuality, and I could see many places in which that knowledge could be put to use, by my senior year I already had doubts about whether or not to continue to pursue this "comfortable path."
With our nation's political climate being hostile for the last ten years, ever since the Bush administration's theft of the United States, we remain uninsured, in debt, and overconsumers of our environment. All of these issues take precendence in my mind for topics that need to be addressed by the citizens of this country, and such changes can be supported by anthropologists willing to put in the effort toward public discourse and active changes on a community level.
Entering the quarter, I had already attempted to contact several individuals from previous Lavender Language Conferences who presented topics that were of interest to me. Only one among them returned my emails, and was able to direct me toward other resources, but had nothing to share from recent publications.
Not wanting to let this stand in my way, I began a systematic search of anthropological journal articles published over the last fifteen years with various keyword searches such as "gender," "transgender," "queer," "gay," "lesbian," "prostitute," "sex work," et al. Despite the diverse qualifiers I offered the search, the majority of my results turned up primarily international, regionally-based, and often highly biased returns. Again, I pressed on. I decided to branch out into other fields as well, collecting information from women's study articles, and also current publications in the broad media.
In many ways this will require a cross-disciplinary viewpoint, for there are some issues not being addressed by Anthropology today, and others that are only represented through the limited lens of a specific region. While diverse sources are important to gain a broader perspective on over-arching themes within human sexuality research, I know that I will likely be spending my in-public work within the local Seattle area, or at least somewhere within the United States. I am a firm believer that we must work on ourselves before we can attempt to adequately assist others in their goals towards region-based progress.
[This is, of course, a lot of jargon. Are you laughing yet Holly? Karen would be slapping my hands and giving me a lecture right about now.]
Another aspect of my initial searches involved a discovery of areas that I felt need further addressing or at least further research. While my first list of terms I wished to explore under the heading of human sexuality grew rather cumbersome, seeing what was already available in the literature and comparing that to recent news reports that concerned me, I found myself most especially drawn to a few core issues: decriminalizing prostitution, the criminalization of children who are eternally labeled "sex predators" for minor exploratory instances, and the juxtaposition of gender identity and sexual preference including terms like transgendered and gender queer.
By focusing on narrower topics, I can better explore where future work could have meaning should I explore it. While I remain interested in further studies of polyamory, the "kink community," pre-natal and post-partum sexuality, and childhood development, to pursue them would be narcissistic and what I consider "taking the easy path."
Nevertheless I must return to my original statement that I am now unsure whether human sexuality itself is even relevant to the more pressing concerns of food security and environmental damage from anthropogenic sources. No matter how much I wish to see justice for the people, it matters little if there is nowhere for humans to live or any resources with which they can survive.
Then again, I am unsure if I have the stamina necessary for work within environmental spheres. Perhaps in many ways, human sexuality remains an escape plan, a way of moving away from the real work that needs to be done immediately. An optomistic view, though, might suggest that if I am creative enough, I could work to assist in systemic changes that address both the concerns of individuals on a social justice level and the urgent needs of a globe facing severe changes over the course of the next thirty years.
STATUS UPDATE: Though in some ways I am well ahead of where I wish to be mentally for this independent study project, the actual reading of texts and creation of a rough bibliography is not where I intended by the third week. However, narrowing my focus should help me provide more quality research for each subject.
With our nation's political climate being hostile for the last ten years, ever since the Bush administration's theft of the United States, we remain uninsured, in debt, and overconsumers of our environment. All of these issues take precendence in my mind for topics that need to be addressed by the citizens of this country, and such changes can be supported by anthropologists willing to put in the effort toward public discourse and active changes on a community level.
Entering the quarter, I had already attempted to contact several individuals from previous Lavender Language Conferences who presented topics that were of interest to me. Only one among them returned my emails, and was able to direct me toward other resources, but had nothing to share from recent publications.
Not wanting to let this stand in my way, I began a systematic search of anthropological journal articles published over the last fifteen years with various keyword searches such as "gender," "transgender," "queer," "gay," "lesbian," "prostitute," "sex work," et al. Despite the diverse qualifiers I offered the search, the majority of my results turned up primarily international, regionally-based, and often highly biased returns. Again, I pressed on. I decided to branch out into other fields as well, collecting information from women's study articles, and also current publications in the broad media.
In many ways this will require a cross-disciplinary viewpoint, for there are some issues not being addressed by Anthropology today, and others that are only represented through the limited lens of a specific region. While diverse sources are important to gain a broader perspective on over-arching themes within human sexuality research, I know that I will likely be spending my in-public work within the local Seattle area, or at least somewhere within the United States. I am a firm believer that we must work on ourselves before we can attempt to adequately assist others in their goals towards region-based progress.
[This is, of course, a lot of jargon. Are you laughing yet Holly? Karen would be slapping my hands and giving me a lecture right about now.]
Another aspect of my initial searches involved a discovery of areas that I felt need further addressing or at least further research. While my first list of terms I wished to explore under the heading of human sexuality grew rather cumbersome, seeing what was already available in the literature and comparing that to recent news reports that concerned me, I found myself most especially drawn to a few core issues: decriminalizing prostitution, the criminalization of children who are eternally labeled "sex predators" for minor exploratory instances, and the juxtaposition of gender identity and sexual preference including terms like transgendered and gender queer.
By focusing on narrower topics, I can better explore where future work could have meaning should I explore it. While I remain interested in further studies of polyamory, the "kink community," pre-natal and post-partum sexuality, and childhood development, to pursue them would be narcissistic and what I consider "taking the easy path."
Nevertheless I must return to my original statement that I am now unsure whether human sexuality itself is even relevant to the more pressing concerns of food security and environmental damage from anthropogenic sources. No matter how much I wish to see justice for the people, it matters little if there is nowhere for humans to live or any resources with which they can survive.
Then again, I am unsure if I have the stamina necessary for work within environmental spheres. Perhaps in many ways, human sexuality remains an escape plan, a way of moving away from the real work that needs to be done immediately. An optomistic view, though, might suggest that if I am creative enough, I could work to assist in systemic changes that address both the concerns of individuals on a social justice level and the urgent needs of a globe facing severe changes over the course of the next thirty years.
STATUS UPDATE: Though in some ways I am well ahead of where I wish to be mentally for this independent study project, the actual reading of texts and creation of a rough bibliography is not where I intended by the third week. However, narrowing my focus should help me provide more quality research for each subject.
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