Some Sex Ed

“Healing happens every time we create the culture of resistance.” –bell hooks

High school is a really tough time for maturing young adults. In their minds, several questions about sex are slipping and swirling past each other in a sea of confusion. The climate for boys is peer pressured and pop-culturally heated with hyper masculinity. Irresponsible messages mash together and crash against the fragile walls of their self-assuredness.

At the very least, our young adult men deserve mature adults to help them navigate this uncharted territory.

When Nicole Dufault, an English teacher at my alma mater, Columbia High School, in Maplewood, New Jersey, was arrested late last month for having sexual liaisons with five male students, I knew that humor and silliness would dance their tango on the ballroom floor of facebook comments and twitter hash-tags. It’s an open forum and we have to vie for attention some how—right. But am I wrong for wanting some semblance of cool-headed logic to prevail?

I guess so. Because none did.

My peers had a field day with the tragic news. It became the pigskin that they tossed about and advanced for yardage. First downs were attained by rebuking the snitch. While touchdowns were awarded to those who bragged about what they wuh-dah-don. In my silence, I didn’t touch the ball--but I was on the field nonetheless smirking and chuckling.

This 35-year-old mother of two is currently in Essex County jail and has lost custody of her two children. The individual repercussions for her crime will likely result in several years behind bars and the termination of her nine-year long teaching career.

So, what’s the big deal? Once she’s locked away, the headlines will disappear, the reporters will go back to where they came from, and the reputation of a good school in a good community can be rehabilitated. In time, all will be well right.

Or naw…

The joviality about this whole affair belies a rather troubling orientation that we have toward our boys. Sex is seen as a rite of passage into manhood—no matter the circumstance. There’s a meta-narrative at play here and it sounds something like this: They are boys, they were horny anyway, and they got laid. Good for them!

As a mature adult and an educator I’m appalled at her abuse of power. She betrayed her students and the trust vested in her by the state and the community.

Yet, the general reaction to this disastrous incident beckons a broader discussion about masculinity and how best to equip young boys with the tools they need to navigate the bewildering territory of sensuality and sex. For our boys, what does exerting healthy sexual agency look like?

There are dramatic consequences when we create for men a sexual identity in which an orgasm, by itself, is adequate to fulfill our needs. This is a lie. We know that sex is much much more meaningful than that. We feel so many other things during a sexual experience: a sense of connection to another person, a greater awareness of our own humanity, and sometimes, the tenderness stokes a profound sense of our place in the world and evokes a deep gratitude. We’re glad to be alive and we resolve toward greater stewardship of our gifts. Intimacy heals.

This is a message we never hear as young boys or grown men.

Instead, narratives of recklessly pursuing sexual conquest are the diet we are fed. Unfortunately, this theme is made ubiquitous thanks to its promotion in mainstream hip-hop. This summer’s #1 anthem was likely Chris Brown’s, “Loyal.” An eager bass-line bounces around a tight melody on this club banger. Lyrically, most of the song is animated by men’s consumption of women. The rest is punctuated with indictments of women for something we men are bragging about on the very same record--promiscuity. I’m caught dizzy by the irony of the smug refrain.

While my own loyalty to women invites me to critique these messages, my appeal to my fellow men also springs from self-interest. We are being robbed of our own deeper sense of being human guys. We’re trading lasting joy for fleeting pleasures.

When I was a teenager, there was a riotous debate over some very difficult questions raging inside me. “Should I make a move on this girl so I can brag about it to my friends later or respect the fact we’re both still getting to know ourselves and be patient?” “Do the women in these porn videos really enjoy the degradation and the violence being inflicted upon them or is this as crazy as it seems?” “What is sex supposed to look like if I can’t trust these images?”

I want to speak on behalf of the men who are struggling with their own place in this hyper-masculinized patriarchal sexual system—a mouthful I know. In order to do this, we have to repeatedly raise questions about how we were socialized within this system.

As I do this, I’m gripped by a terrible truth: masculinity is not only fiction but also a trap imposed on us, just like femininity for women, to confine rather than liberate.

For a young teenage boy making sense of real attractions to the young ladies around him, we should not train him in the pathology that sex is another battleground to compete and prove your manhood. He will feel a need to prove himself and do things prematurely.

Were these fifteen year old boys mature enough to handle the emotional impact of their sexual encounters with the 35-year old Ms. Default? As soon to be adults, will they experience a strong need to show women how adequately they can perform sexually? Might this need inhibit their capacities to sustain long-term intimate relationships with other women? This is an appropriate and valid line of questioning. But our hyper-masculinized patriarchal sexual system has a way of silencing these queries.

With our boys, society will be a lot less forgiving later on if these concerns aren’t given the attention they deserve now.

As frustrated as I’ve been with the criminal incident and the responses to it, I didn’t want to squander yet another opportunity to talk sincerely about sex and sexuality with our youth.

As mature adults we should be part of a nurturing ecosystem of support and care. Let’s not compound Ms. Default’s irresponsibility with our own. Our young boys deserve better—and their future relationships with women will be better for it.