Profs and Pints Charlottesville presents: “Our Sexual Miseducation,” on our society’s serious lack of accurate sex education and what we often fail to learn on our own, with Lisa Speidel, certified sexuality educator, associate professor in the University of Virginia’s Women, Gender and Sexuality Department, and co-author of The Edge of Sex: Navigating a Sexually Confusing Culture from the Margins.
American culture fears and discourages an open dialogue on human sexuality—the way we experience and express ourselves as sexual beings biologically, erotically, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As a result, many of us did not receive much sex education, were taught little beyond the message to stay abstinent until marriage, and found ourselves relying on the information from parents who had no idea how to give “the talk.” Left to our own devices to learn about sex, we turned to sources such as Google searches, internet porn, or the popular media. Often, the result has been complete disaster, both societally and in our own personal lives.
Join Professor Lisa Speidel, a scholar of sexual education and sexual behavior, for a talk that will pull the covers off the sources and consequences of our sexual miseducation and point the way to how we can experience more fulfillment and overall happiness.
She’ll provide an overview of why sex education is so lacking, discussing how only about half of states require sex education to be medically accurate, the overwhelming majority stress abstinence education despite its ineffectiveness, and several require instruction that portrays as shameful, unacceptable or illegal alternative gender identifies or sexualities other than heterosexuality.
You’ll learn how alternative sources of information often are even less helpful. Television shows, in particular, are filled with sexual clichés and distortions of fact, and teem with confusing imagery that reinforces traditional gender roles of submissive women and dominant men and set viewers up for disappointment, dissatisfaction, and unrealistic self-expectations.
You’ll learn how the consequences of it all include a pleasure gap between men and women, nonconsensual sex, shame, fear, poor communication in the bedroom, and unattended sexual healthcare. Gendered expectations of masculinity and femininity can leave us confused and unable to ask for what we want, and those who are questioning or exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity are often left in isolation. You might even gain insights into your own gaps in knowledge or why romantic encounters have gone awry.
Dr. Speidel will tackle the question of how we as a society can improve our approach to sex education, so that safety, respect, consent, pleasure and joy are central to our sexuality. She’ll also take questions from the audience. Don’t be shy. (Tickets must be purchased online at $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees and should be purchased in advance. Doors open to talk attendees at 4:30 pm and the talk itself starts at 6 pm.)
Image: Photo by Pexels.