A Matter of Context

Trigger Warning: pregnancy loss

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I believe I'm going to remember last week as the week of miscarriages.  Really, though, it was just the two.

The first was good news, the second not so much.  The two together provided a stark reminder that the emotions surrounding pregnancy loss are completely relative. 

The first happened to a woman who had contacted Spectrum.  She had become pregnant accidentally and had scheduled an abortion procedure around 5 or 6 weeks LMP.  Having been raised what she called "Uber-Catholic," having an abortion was, to her, the killing of a human being.  But she had no choice.  You hear this scenario played out pretty often when you work with people experiencing pregnancy loss.  Intellectually, the embryo is just that: an embryo.  But when you're supporting a person who has been raised in a certain faith or ideology, there's always this deep-seeded idea that they will be killing a human being.  What the general public needs to know is that, most times, they will still have the abortion.  No amount of belief that the embryo is human, no amount of guilt or shame they feel from their childhood upbringing, and no state-mandated scare tactics can sway them from that choice.  They will terminate the pregnancy.  The difference is, they will have more emotional trouble dealing with it.  That's where I come in.

I spent a number of hours speaking on the phone with this woman over the course of a week.  She came to trust me as a truly non-judgmental ear that didn't shame her for choosing abortion but also wouldn't correct her when she said "baby" or "kill."  She became fixated on the idea that she would feel better about the whole situation if she experienced a spontaneous abortion (the medical term for miscarriage) instead of having it induced.  I don't know whether or not she did something to herself to self-terminate (she mentioned having read the parsley + vitamin C "trick" on the internet), but regardless, she did indeed end up having a miscarriage.  The news came from her voice with absolute joy.  She truly felt like the Universe, God, or what have you worked with her to bring about the event, and in the end she was able to have the kind of pregnancy loss she could not only deal with, but be happy about.

The second miscarriage of last week happened, sadly, to one of my birth clients.  She was 18 weeks pregnant, and without sharing too much of her personal information here, I can tell you that this event was earth-shattering for her and her family.  After hearing the news, I spent the better part of the next couple of days in a kind of withdrawn daze.  The pain she must have been experiencing was unimaginable to me.  After all, 18 weeks is pretty far along: you've become attached to the idea of having a baby.  You may have even thought up some names, or even started to buy clothes.  You've already told everyone that you're pregnant.  As if the loss itself isn't enough to deal with, the fetus and other products of conception are not likely to pass on their own, meaning you'll possibly need a D&C and/or labor induction.  Your pregnancy - once this enigmatic idea of a baby - actually looks like a baby at this point... a very small baby, but a baby nonetheless. Worse still, losing a pregnancy after 16 weeks means your milk is likely to come in once your progesterone levels drop.  In other words, full breasts and empty arms.  It's really more than I care to imagine.

I have heard (mostly young) pro-choice folks scoff at the notion of having a memorial for a miscarried embryo or fetus.  Hell, I might have done it myself in my teen years; after all, if a fetus is not a baby, then you didn't lose a baby.  But listen to enough people who have lost wanted pregnancies - whether to miscarriage, stillbirth, anomaly, etc - and your opinions mature astronomically.  They are no longer as black-and-white as they were when you were a red-faced college freshman shouting at antichoice protestors in front of your local Planned Parenthood, and while you remain as staunchly pro-choice as ever, the entire idea of pregnancy loss is tangled up in a billion shades of gray. 

That's really why "the abortion war" is so damn polarizing.  Social issues are best understood and dealt with when they can be easily boiled down to a black-and-white dichotomy.  But really, no social issue whatsoever can be simplified to that end.  We try, but we fail, and in our wake we do a grave disservice to those most affected by that issue.

The antichoice camp is able to rally huge amounts of support simply because their side really does take the black-and-white approach: their arguments are one-liners and emotion-grabbing images, and they make great headlines.  The prochoice movement fails by merely trying to echo these tactics.  Our arguments are full of holes when restricted to the same style of one-liners and headlines, easily refuted when we don't get into the complexities of pregnancy and women's lives.  Our messages will not be received if we merely keep screaming them louder and louder, and we will not ever attain true reproductive justice until we begin to acknowledge that all pregnancy outcomes - birth, abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth - mean nothing without the context that surrounds them.

Just look at my two clients... one had a miscarriage, and it was wonderful.  The other had a miscarriage, and it was the worst thing possible.

Moments in the Life of a Doula

Very Little Known Fact: May is International Doula Month.  2012 marks my third May as a doula, and let's just say the past few years have been nothing short of inspirational. 

I'm on call for my tenth birth.  Number ten!  Two and a half years ago I never thought I'd get here... my dedication to women's health has never been enough, and I fast learned that it's very hard to "get known" as a birth worker, especially when you've never had any babies yourself.  Still, the clients I have worked for have hired me for my presence, my energy.  And as I get more experience, more mamas are realizing that it's energy, not personal experience as a laboring person, that really matters.

Today I'm thinking about all the babies I have had the privilege to watch come into the world: Lundyn, Sara, Quinn, Aaron, Micha, Madison, Gershom, Amelia, and Sullivan.  All born to totally badass mamas with incredibly unique and wonderful birthing experiences. 

Thinking about these nine phenomenal experiences, I ran through my "stats".  Some prospective clients like to know, for example, your clients' epidural rate, though unlike your care provider's cesarean rate, a doula's epidural rate really hinges more on the way the birth progresses itself and not the actual doula.  Or so I tell myself.  But still, I'm proud of my stats.  In my nine births, I have had:

• Three boys, six girls.
• Three mamas who chose to have an epidural.
• Three mamas induced with Pitocin.
• One cesarean birth.
• Two mamas delivered at Forsyth Medical Center, one at Women's Birth and Wellness Center, and six at Women's Hospital.
• The fastest labor was an hour and a half.
• The longest was well over 20 hours.
• My favorite midwife thus far was Kate Layman, CNM at the birth center.  My least favorite was one of the faculty midwives at Women's who, fortunately, was only on for three more hours after my mama was admitted. 
• My favorite obstetrician was Dr. Grewal, my least favorite a tie between Dr. Marshall and whoever the guy was at Forsyth back in September (not worth remembering). 
• I've really loved all the nurses, but my favorite remains the pediatric nurse at Women's Hospital who helped the mama and I convince the father that circumcision has no real medical benefit.

Like any doula, I've experienced the absolute best of human love, compassion, and forgiveness simply by being there in the room.  I've heard mamas and their partners say ridiculously funny shit, sharing a good laugh between tough contractions.  I've also witnessed families make difficult decisions, seen women break down and sob when their birth plans have gone awry.  Fortunately, my birth clients have all gone on to deliver beautiful, healthy babies despite these roadblocks.  I have many favorite moments that straddle these two extremes... to name a few:

• My greatest learning moment came to me in birth number four.  The mama had been having one back-labor contraction on top of the other for a solid 90 minutes.  It had been seven hours since her last vaginal exam, at which time she was 5cm dilated.  When her contractions "stopped," I told her she was probably complete and would be feeling the urge to push soon.  After an hour of continued back pain and no urge to push, the nurse checked her and found that she was 6cm, at most.  As the baby was being born later that day (after an epidural, a nice long nap, and a marathon pushing phase), I saw that he was asyncletic.  Immediately my education flooded the forefront of my mind... it all made sense: the slow progression, the "fake" transition, the lengthy 2nd stage, even the week of prodromal labor. All textbook signs of an asyncletic presentation.  It was in this experience that I re-learned to NEVER estimate the laboring person's progress, that it's not the doula's job no matter how "clear" it seems to be at the time.
• While DONA would surely frown on this, I've been taught a few midwifery skills by midwives who needed an extra hand.  When a birth center midwife was busy stitching up a mama with a 4th degree tear, she asked me to do the fundal massage.  I'd never done it before, but she told me where to place my hand, what to do, and how hard to do it.  While it certainly went against my "doula instincts" to massage so hard, I now feel like I would be able to do hemorrhage control if I'm ever the only person present who knew how to do it.  Another midwife, during a very long 2nd stage at the hospital, gave me a refresher course in how to catch a baby if I ever had a mama deliver on the side of the road.  DONA teaches a little bit about that, but since we're really not "supposed" to do anything medical, they keep it brief.
• There's a popular one-liner amongst birth professionals about the difference between a doula and a midwife: "Midwives catch babies, doulas catch dads."  While I scoff at the obvious couple-centrism, I actually have caught a dad before.  Seeing how he was an ex-Army medic and current paramedic, no one really thought he'd have a problem with witnessing the birth.  However, the sleep deprivation, low blood sugar, and pure adrenalin of "oh my god I'm becoming a father" formed the perfect storm, and while everyone else was watching his baby crown, he was boarding the express train to the floor.  I caught him, this easily 200-pound man, inches above the ground.  Even Dr. Grewal turned from her obstetric duties to congratulate me on my quick reflexes, and hey, it bought the baby's cord some time!
• Speaking of umbilical cords, I once saw a "true knot" in one, which was awesome. The midwife and I shared a moment of "oh wow awesome!" while the new parents were admiring the new baby.  Because we're birth nerds like that.
• Some of my favorite parents have been the ones who "talk back" to care providers that aren't honoring their wishes.  At a rapid (unmedicated) birth last September, the doctor was trying to tell the woman to push when she didn't yet feel the urge.  Any decent research on an unmedicated 2nd stage will tell you this is a waste of energy, but the doctor obviously had a golf game to get to, so he continued to berate her, saying she "wasn't going to have a baby by just laying there and resting."  At this moment, she looked at him and said, "Shut the hell up, I'll push when I damn well feel like it."  Obviously the urge to push came, and within minutes she was holding her baby girl.  My favorite part about that birth was the dad talking shit about the doctor while he was on the other side of the curtain... whoops!

My favorite moments, however, are present at every single birth: the energy you can almost touch, the families being born, the immense joy in the room.  It's really indescribable, and words just cannot do justice to the experience of being present for the birth of a baby.

On another note, I also spent some time this week being the "phone doula" for a woman who was planning an abortion.  I was reminded of how similar the work is even if the outcome is obviously very different (I've discussed this before).  I gave advice, self-care suggestions, and basically was just there to listen and understand.  Without providing too much specific information about her case, I can tell her that her outlook on abortion is far different from mine.  Which is to say, she's never considered herself prochoice or "pro-life."  She was raised what she called "Super Catholic" and honestly thought she would be killing a human being.  But she was having the abortion anyway because it was her only real option.

By the end of our conversations prior to her appointment, she felt good about the choice she was making.  She had more clarity in her values, she was forgiving herself, and couldn't stop thanking me for being there for her without leading, assuming, judging, etc.

Just like at births.

I've been jokingly labeled as a "truly full-spectrum" doula by friends.  Bad Day Doula, Relationship Doula, Sleep Deprivation Doula, Headache Doula... I may end up being my mom's Hip Replacement Doula by the end of the summer.  What it comes down to isn't some certification, or even training... it comes down to who I am as a person, what I am willing to do for people, and the way I treat them.  The training informs the actions we take in response to our instincts, but someone can't simply be trained to be the kind of person a doula is.

Oh hell, I'm rambling.  I'll just let Boromir break it down for you.  Happy International Doula Month, all!!

So this gay marriage thing...

So I was going to write this long, drawn-out piece on the limitations of confining the entire LGBTQ liberation movement into "same-sex marriage."  I was going to go off about Obama's "convenient" announcement yesterday that he now supports same-sex marriage.  And to stave off accusations of total negativity, I was also going to tie in the silver lining: that NC's Amendment 1 has ignited a movement that is focusing on issues far  broader than "marriage equality," that its passage has turned normal, everyday people from pro-equality voters to activists for complete uncompromising social justice. 

But then I read this piece at Black Girl Dangerous and realized Mia McKenzie says it better than I could ever hope to...

Obama Loves Queers! (Except Not)

Breastfeeding Advocacy: You're Doin It Wrong

If there's one thing breastfeeding advocates are really good at, it's spouting off the numerous health benefits of breastfeeding while listing the risks of artificial formulas.  You'd be hard-pressed to find a mom who, for example, couldn't tell you that breastfed babies have less illness, fewer allergies, or a lower risk of childhood obesity. 

And yet US breastfeeding rates are abysmal, with fewer than 15% of American women exclusively breastfeeding for the WHO recommendation of six months, and only about 44% of six-month old babies are breastfeeding with supplementation or complementary foods.  The numbers drop even more once you get to the WHO's recommendation of breastfeeding with the addition of complementary foods past the first year, with only 23% of babies receiving any breastmilk at all past that landmark. And of course, lower-income women and women of color are far more likely to quit breastfeeding earlier.

We've heard it all before: "My milk dried up after three months."  "I had to go back to work, and it just wasn't possible anymore."  "I didn't know lactation consultants existed."  "I had way too much going on in my life to fix the problem."  "I couldn't afford lactation support."  "My partner didn't support my decision to breastfeed." For these situations, pamphlets and ad campaigns that regurgitate the old "breast is best" adage aren't going to suddenly resolve breastfeeding challenges.  All they're going to do is create more guilt and shame in the minds of mothers who, despite their best efforts, just couldn't make it work for them. 

So says a recent study regarding the Surgeon General's 2011 "Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding."  The Call, hardly a breastfeeding-friendly overhaul of the nation's health care system, has been received as mere propaganda that spouts a message without providing realistic solutions.  Mothers surveyed say the Call gave them more reasons to feel bad about not breastfeeding without providing actual mandates that change the way new mothers are able to make autonomous parenting choices.

I will say this: the article does an incredibly shoddy job of analyzing the situation.  Instead of asking why so few mothers make it to the six month mark, ABC News chooses instead to interview a medical professional, a professor of pediatrics nonetheless, who says that there are "other options" for women who aren't producing enough milk for their children.

On the other side, the Peanut Gallery provides very little reprieve, featuring commentary from the very short-sighted "I-Did-It-So-Everyone-Can" camp:

• "Everyone has to do what works for them, but for most women who get past the learning curve (which takes up to 6 weeks), the convenience of breastfeeding is a huge blessing."
  Yeah, tell that to the woman who has to go back to her minimum-wage job after four weeks and won't be able to express milk while at work. 
  
• "I think I'll wait until more moms get over their denial over being lazy mothers first. Children aren't dogs or cats, either put up or shut up if you're going to make the choice to have one."
  Right, that's why women stop breastfeeding, because they're lazy.  Not because they were in a situation that looks nothing like yours (gasp!). 
  
• "3 babies died this year from formula i am sure the moms that fed there [sic] babies that formula had tried to breastfeed hard those babies would be here today and there are breastmilk banks throgh [sic] the hospital where people dnate [sic] extra milk it is drug tested and safe"
  Okay, first of all, let's try some punctuation.  You can learn how to use it at many public institutions including elementary school.  Secondly, donated milk at milk banks is generally reserved for very sick or premature babies and is generally not available for public use.  Finally, even if you did find a milk bank that would provide milk for a well baby, its distribution would not be covered by insurance.  Milk banks charge upwards of $3 per ounce (for those of you playing along at home, that's about $72 a day).  And while more communities now have underground (non-banked) milk sharing programs, many mothers just aren't comfortable accepting unpasteurized milk from a stranger. 

No one in either camp, be it "breast is best" or "stop shaming formula-feeding moms," seems to adequately get to the heart of the problem.  No, we shouldn't be guilt-tripping mothers who, for whatever reason, stopped breastfeeding before one year or never tried at all.  But we also shouldn't just accept that 86% of American mothers made some autonomous decision to not exclusively breastfeed!  Let me be clear: campaigns that tout the many benefits of breastfeeding (and risks of formula-feeding) are valuable, but they aren't going to raise the bar alone.  To truly create a society where mothers are able to make autonomous infant feeding decisions, we need to be a bit more radical. 

To start, let me suggest:

• Complete physical, spiritual, and emotional control over when we bring children into the world in the first place.  About half of all pregnancies are unintended, and many mothers struggle just to be able to provide a safe place for their infants to sleep at night.  For these mothers, whether or not their babies are at heightened risk for childhood obesity may be the furthest thing from their minds.   
• Access to quality maternity care regardless of ability to pay.  Actually, let's just go ahead and say that health care is a human right and should not be a part of our for-profit system.  
• Insurance and Medicaid reimbursement for lactation support and any equipment needed to implement a plan of care.  
• Longer maternity leave with full pay, followed by full employer support for mothers who need time and space to express breastmilk while at work.
• Free childcare.
• More support from friends, family, and society at large.  While women who are successful at breastfeeding are more likely to do so for longer than, say, thirty years ago, there is still a large percent of people who believe breastfeeding past six months is somehow akin to sexual abuse or just plain "creepy."  
• Education about breastfeeding as the normal way to feed a baby beginning in the early years of elementary school.  Maybe bring back the famous Sesame Street segment. 
• Teaching girls from an early age that our bodies are totally rad and that there's nothing "gross" or "weird" about our periods, our pregnancies, or our ability to produce milk. 

Pipe dreams.

Nums: The "Oh Dear God!" Bacon Apple Pie

I've received a fair number of requests to share the recipe for the bacon apple pie I made for Spectrum's benefit pie auction last month.  So here it is!

The first thing you should know about this pie is that my intention was to just make something ridiculous.  The boring vegan chocolate pie I made last year only brought in about $15 for our collective, so this year I decided to get creative.  I figured that a pie featuring everyone's favorite meat would gain at least a bit more attention (if not donation), especially since I knew that many benefit attendees would be vegan (for those of you not in the know, vegans absolutely love bacon).  But then I tried the "test pie" and decided that this recipe isn't just ridiculous... it's DELICIOUS.

The original recipe came from a cooking blog, but I tweaked the recipe enough that I'm now calling it mine.  Of course those of you who know me know that I like to feed people, so I'm not possessive about recipes.  In other words, take this recipe, tweak it, and feel your arteries harden as you make many, many bacony pies.

The "Oh Dear God!" Bacon Apple Pie

I should note that I make my own pie crust because I'm a friggin food snob.  My favorite recipe comes from Cooks Illustrated, which I of course tweaked a bit as well, mostly because I have problems with authority.  To make the crust, you will need the following:

• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp table salt
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1/4 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
• 1/8 cup cold vodka
• 1/8 cup cold water

To make the crust:

• Process 3/4 cups flour, salt, and sugar in food processor until combined, about two 1-second pulses.  Add butter and shortening and process into homogenous dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds; dough will resemble cottage cheese curds.
• Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade.  Add remaining cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl, about 4-6 quick pulses.  Empty mixture into medium bowl.
• Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture.  With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together.  Ball up and wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.
• After cooled, roll out on generously floured work surface to 12” circle, about 1/8” thick.  Roll dough loosely around rolling pin and unroll into pie plate, leaving at least 1” overhang on each side.

And now for the filling.  You'll need pretty much the "normal stuff" you'd buy to make a non-baconated apple pie:

•  5-6 medium tart apples, peeled, cored, sliced, then halved (Ida Reds worked beautifully)
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 2 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1/3 cup real maple syrup 

...and then the fun stuff:

• 4 strips bacon, fried to almost-crispy and torn into small pieces
• 6-7 strips raw bacon, halved lengthwise 
• 1 tbsp scotch (something smokey... I used Johnnie Walker Black Label)

Now for the preparation!

 

Preheat your oven to 350*F.  Sprinkle the cooked bacon pieces over the bottom of the crust.  These pieces will continue to cook up into the rest of the filling so that the whole pie has that delicious bacon flavor. 

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the apple slices, brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, cornstarch, and scotch.  I found that it didn't matter what order this was in, but you want to make sure the apples are coated in all the above goodness by this point, then toss the entire mixture with the maple syrup.  If you really want to get crazy, add up to 1 tbsp of bacon grease from the frying pan.

Empty the filling into the pie crust on top of the bacon pieces.

Now for the real fun... those of you who make pies fairly regularly may have noticed there is no butter in this filling.  That's because you don't need it... you will be building a bacon lattice on top of your pie!  This is where the halved strips of raw bacon come in.  As they cook in the oven, the grease will drip down into the filling, giving your pie even more of a gooey bacony flavor.  (Sidebar: if you need help making a lattice, YouTube has many how-to videos.)


 This is where the recipe may still need more tweaking.  On the test pie, I did not crimp the dough over the bacon pieces as pictured; I simply let the bacon pieces hang over the edge so that when they cooked they would simply shrink.  When I crimped the dough over, the bacon slices shrunk inward and came out a bit small.  You'll have to decide what you like better... the crimped dough looks prettier, but simply letting the long pieces of bacon hang over may be better once cooked.

Bake the pie about 1 hour, until the bacon pieces appear cooked and the apple slices are tender. 

Enjoy!

A Letter to Y'all

Dear Y'all,

I appreciate the concern you have for me and my emotional well-being.  Without many of you, the past year of my life would not have been survivable, let alone exciting and ridiculously fun.  For all the support, love, and time, I am infinitely thankful and blessed to have each of you in my life.

That being said, no, I do not want to get drunk on Sunday.  I do not want to smash stuff, burn things, cast voodoo curses, or anything other than the usual stuff I do on Sundays (which lately has consisted of sleeping in, laundry, and... laundry). If you would like to hang out, let's do so because we're hanging out and not because it's March 4. 

I know I'm one to place strong emotional ties to things like anniversaries, and I know I am often easily triggered by strange associations I've built in my mind.  However, I am not going to have a nervous breakdown.  I am not going to backslide into a compromised emotional state.  I may have one or two moments throughout the day of, "Oh hey, it's my wedding anniversary," but other than that, I don't really anticipate an issue.

I do not want you to come over and help me "process stuff." I do not want you to call to "check in" on how I'm doing... if we're in regular contact, you probably have a pretty good idea of how I'm doing (exceedingly well, for those of you playing along at home), and the calendar day isn't likely to change that.  I honestly don't really want to think about it at all.  (If you really want to come by, you can help with the vast amounts of laundry I'll be doing, and I may feed you lunch.)

Here's the other thing: my new relationship did not enable me to survive the failed marriage.  That train of logic is backwards.  My ability to survive (and do so beautifully, if I do say so myself) was something I enabled myself to do, and it made entering into a new relationship possible.  "She's doing well because of a boy" insults me greatly and undermines my journey; it assumes I could never be happy without another person (a man, at that) to validate my existence, which is fucked.  I went from having never really been "single" as an adult to being a fiercely independent woman in a short period of time, and I did so by myself, lovingly enabled by continuous support from a rad group of close friends and family members.  So before you look to my current relationship for a reason why I'm so damn happy, remember that my ability to be a joyous autonomous human being came first, not the other way around.  My happiness isn't hingent on being involved romantically with someone else (and by the way, neither is yours).

So again, thank you everyone for helping me be the reason I don't want to do anything differently this coming Sunday. Your love and friendship means the world to me, and hey, next time I do want to smash things/burn stuff/cast a few voodoo curses, I'll know who to call. 

Love,
LG

When You 'Approve' of Pretty Much Anything

When I look up from my desk, there's a camera phone in my face.  I can tell it's set to "video" by the way they're snickering.  "Lauren, can we ask you something?" they begin.  I tell them of course, they can ask me anything.  From a sea of teenage giggles comes the question, "Do you approve of penis sucking?"

It's mid-November and I've just started working as the coordinator for a teen peer educator program.  The regular health educator, a woman with whom they have built strong bonds of trust, has recently had a baby and left this goofy group of kids under my care.  They are trained to facilitate presentations and workshops about sex, drugs/alcohol, peer pressure, healthy relationships, and more with other teens in their community.  The program is associated with lower teen pregnancy and STI rates.  These kids are smart, but they are also teens... that is, they have dirty minds and they love to say weird shit.

"Approve?" I ask.  "As in, do I approve of other people doing it?"  More giggling, plus nodding.  "Okay y'all.  What do we talk about here?  If it's consensual and safe, I 'approve' of pretty much anything."

Roaring laughter.  "ANYTHING?!?!"  They can barely contain their excitement, basking in the belief that they have "tricked" me into opening the floodgates.  Tricked my ass.  This was intentional.

What follows is a series of questions about whether or not I "approve" of a whole host of weird things, at least as "weird" as the unseasoned teenage mind can conjure.  It is at this moment I realize I am, at my heart, cut out for this kind of work.  I don't flinch, even when in my mind I may be making my best "WTF?" face.  The same goes for my work as a doula.  When a multiparous mama said she "wanted pressure on her anus" to relieve some unnerving sensation during second stage, I didn't flinch... I wrapped a tennis ball in a nitrate glove, slipped one on my own hand, and held the thing to her anus until her baby started to crown and the visibly-confused OB told me to get out of the way.  It wasn't weird to me.  It was intuitive and matter-of-fact, and it made her birthing experience more comfortable. 

But back to the teens. While the "penis sucking" question became a running joke, the conversation that started it all established a culture of trust between myself and these particular teens.  During my tenure as their coordinator, several of them would return privately to ask intensely personal questions.  Questions that they weren't about to ask their parents, HCPs, or even close friends. 

Now consider how the "penis sucking" question would have been met within the school system.  An educator would either have to espouse some state-scripted AOUM crap, or (more likely) would chastise the inquirer for being "inappropriate."  If there was an educator on the taxpayer's payroll telling kids that they "approve of pretty much anything," can you imagine the resulting shitstorm?  That would be 24/7 news material, and of course the context would be completely absent from the discourse surrounding the controversy. 

Towards the end of my job coordinating the teens' program, an intern remarked at how comfortable I was being completely honest about my private sexual life.  The initial question of "do you approve of ______" had turned a bit more personal: "Do you ______?"  "Have you ever _____?"  "Why do people like ______?"  "What's the safest way to ______?"  These conversations were generally humorous yet serious, and I felt that by providing answers using my own personal experiences, I was furthering the trust and rapport that would reassure the teens that they could really ask me anything.  I reminded the interns that they absolutely did not have to answer questions about their personal lives if they didn't want to, but that I did because I felt that it normalized sexuality and reaffirmed that sex was a universal and enjoyable part of being human.  And always, I reminded them about our two best friends, consent and safety.

I'm sure some parents (and maybe my bosses) would have raised an eyebrow if they knew what kinds of things I'd shared with my teens, but kids need this kind of blatant honesty, especially when they're so obviously not getting it elsewhere.  Teen sexuality is, in our society, something we're supposed to cringe at, something that's bad and can only be bad.  Hell, the most anti-sex right wingers even believe that the only reason teenagers even think about sex is because they're "told to" by the media and allegedly "anti-morality" feminists.  A recent video put out by the American Life League accused Planned Parenthood in particular of getting teens "addicted" to sex, apparently using masturbation as the "gateway drug" (can't make this shit up).  While this all fits nicely into the religious right's crusade against positive sexuality, it does absolutely nothing to offer teenagers realistic and factual information about their bodies and their sexual lives.  When messages that paint sexuality in a positive light are so absent, teens - especially teen girls - have two choices: they can either adhere to the conservative principle that sex is a commodity to be used in exchange for a husband, or they can follow the media's insistence that sex is a commodity to be used in exchange for social clout.  (Consequently, these two camps decry the other to boost their respective "profit margins."  They also both reaffirm the message that a woman's sexual life is not her own.  That teen girls can use their bodies for whatever purpose best suits their own desires is tragically absent from almost any mainstream debate about sexuality.)

The American Life League would surely accuse me of exposing my peer educators to some vague form of "pornography," but in reality all I ever did was answer questions honestly.  We see childhood as this protected period, and in so many ways it absolutely should be, but we forget that kids are just young humans.  In their own way, kids are sexual creatures just the same - anyone who's had to have "the privacy talk" with their toddler can tell you that - and while it doesn't mean they should be going out and expressing those tendencies with other people until they reach a certain level of maturity, it does mean that we need to have these blatantly honest conversations early and in an age-appropraite way.  The religious right wants us to forget that, to equate masturbation - surely the safest and most self-affirming sexual practice there is - with deviance and dangerous promiscuity.  But they do this to maintain a power structure which is not conducive to one's best possible sexual health.  Sure you can point at the fact that lifelong-monogamous couples aren't likely to contract an STI, but how often does this really work out, and when such a lifestyle decision comes from a culture of sexual repression and not one's autonomous desires, what else is being lost?  It may seem simpler, but in the long-term, is it even worth it? 

I suggest a frankness about sexuality.  An openness.  Such an approach does nothing to encourage teens to be "promiscuous," no... time and time again, research shows that comprehensive sex education results in fewer STIs, lower instances of unintended pregnancies, heightened self-esteem, healthier and more egalitarian relationships.  I also suggest parents quit freaking out when "someone else" talks to their kids about sexuality.  "Someone else" teaches them about almost every other thing, so why not sex?  Especially when that "someone else" is a trained educator who can answer questions that parents may not know the answer to (or may not feel comfortable answering honestly).  Sometimes it's hard to release that kind of control, but parents need to remember that, when it comes to sex education, "someone else" may very well be the best possible option.

Unless of course parents are willing to be the ones on the other side of a video camera, being filmed while their kid asks them a question about "penis sucking."