I don’t mean to be on a kick of documenting the “stupid” of sex, but some quotes, you just can’t let slide when they float across your newsreader:

“I never had a class in my life on that and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out,” board member Bill Schumacher said at Monday’s school board meeting, adding he wonders if eighth-grade is too soon for such matters.

The matter that Bill Schumacher presumes even rocket scientists are so schooled in (though I can’t point to that data at the moment, and am not sure it even exists) is how to use a condom.

Apparently the eighth graders in his district in Cowlitz County, Washington are showing “skyrocketing” STI rates, and the school’s Superintendent would like to re-instate instruction in condom use, which was cut from the middle school curriculum two years ago. The County Health Department is for it, the health teachers are for it — pretty much anyone who has actual contact with actual people facing questions around how to have sex and stay safe.

Aside from making me want to go find the numbers on how many school administrators know how to use a condom properly — again, like ‘rocket scientists,’ an under-studied population — in order to make a point, that we are so quick to scrutinize how easy-to-control and traditionally disempowered folks have sex — like young people, queer folks, young men of color, the incarcerated, and sex workers — really, I’m just yearning in general for less of these stories to document on a daily basis.

Santa, screw the stocking-stuffers — just send me the good sex ed news.

Sexerati fave and tartstar Molly Crabapple is touring the East Coast early in 2007, bringing with her the cabaret/artschool collision that is Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, where participants can get properly soused (or caffeinated) whilst sketching beautifully barely-clad models in a slightly salacious environment that puts the life (and then some) back into “life modeling.”

Molly is touring now in support of the first Dr. Sketchy’s publication/propaganda piece, Dr. Sketchy’s Official Rainy Day Coloring Book, which she promises is…

Much like popular Victorian cure-all tonics, Dr. Sketchy’s Official Rainy Day Colouring Book is a natrual cure for boredom, apathy, shingles, gout, sobriety, and erectile dysfunction. It can even buy you Love! (or at least explain how to hire her for an evening to strip down to her pasties). Lovingly illustrated, adorned with dirty humor and black wit, this book is twice as good as James Joyce’s Ulysses- and three times as sexy.

Fear not if you’ve no Dr. Sketchy’s yet where you call home — here’s how to start your very own.

These human sexuality students at George Mason University are keeping a group blog “devoted to the thoughts, feelings, and insights” during their class experience together this Fall. With the semester nearly done, there’s lots to read back on.

Some favorite quotes, why not, to give us a little faith in the small revolutions in sex ed going on each day, somewhere in America:

From Mimi:

“So I REALLY had a great time doing the experiential activites. I ended up choosing a lot of the activites that allow you to discuss certain topics with your partner: like enhancing sexual enjoyment, birth control options, and how to be a better partner.”

From student A:

“From reading chapter 13 it is interesting to read about childhood sexuality. I learned that about childhood masturbation. I had no idea that is was so common and is very natural.”

From Miss Scion tC:

“One activity had me view myself in the mirror and in doijng this activity I relaized that I havea lot to improve on and that I do want to improve myself.”

Okay, so they could use some minor revolutions in spelling, too, but how heartening is the message.

I’d love to keep tabs on more sexuality education blogs. Links, please!

Forbes reports on a study out in the November issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine:

Regardless of their political leanings, the majority of American adults (80.4 percent) favors a balanced approach to sex education in schools, including teaching children about both abstinence and other ways of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, a University of Pennsylvania study finds.

The findings suggest that the U.S. government’s support for abstinence-only programs doesn’t reflect broad public support for comprehensive sex education, say researchers from the school’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.

(Because, you know, this is just the first time American policy makers push onward despite what the American people tell them matters.)

Not only do most Americans favor comprehensive sexuality education in schools, they overwhelmingly want young people to be instructed on the value of safer sex:

The survey found that 80.4 percent of the respondents believed comprehensive sex education programs were an effective way to prevent pregnancies, compared to 39 percent who favored abstinence-only programs. Eighty-two percent of respondents said they supported comprehensive programs, while 10 percent opposed them.

The researchers also found that 68.5 percent supported and 21 percent opposed condom instruction, while 36 percent supported and 50 percent opposed abstinence-only programs.

All this, even as absintence-only ‘education’ is being promoted to Americans up to the age of twenty-nine with millions in federal funding? Is it possible to conceive that more than just blue state America wants no more of sex ‘educators’ like the one whose video runs below the fold? Take a peek at how ‘the other 20%’ lives:

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