The Jam Session Model of Sex only works for a minority

[elfs]

The Jam Session Model of Sex, brilliantly described by Karen B. K. Chan, tries to model a sexual encounter between two (or more) people as a musical jam session. In a musical jam session, people of differing musical abilities, talents, and skills get together and play together. Jazz is the pre-eminent genre of the jam session, in which experience

Comments

[sirfox]

In NY State, home Ec. was a middle school thing, and covered domestic activities, aside from one day when we watched a TV special about Ryan White to teach us about AIDS.

In high school, there was a mandated two semesters of "Health Class" which spent a good chunk of time on reproductive health, discussing contraception, including what does and doesn't get someone pregnant and every regoofulous misapprehension the teacher had ever heard, and then helped to dismiss with Data and Facts. There was also The Blue Book. The Blue Book probably helped more of my classmates avoid STD's than anything else. It was a book of close-up photographs detailing the advancing stages of multiple different diseases. There's nothing like full color closeups of rotting genitalia to remind you that Condoms Are Important.

That's like 90% mechanics, however. While the health teacher was about as supportive as she could be, the early 90s wasn't ready for discussing the actual exploration of sex and sexuality, about all it could manage was to try and arm us with some facts and perspective against a sea of hormones, misinformation and sex-driven media and advertisements and leave us to figure out the rest for ourselves. The internet was about to come along, and resources were about to get a lot more available. Your Journal Entries hit my life in the second half of the 90s, at a time when some stories about characters exploring various spectrums of sexuality was a Very Needed Thing. Thanks again for that.

Like cooking or music or plumbing or woodworking or shibari, until we have a chance to explore what we do and don't connect with, we have a hard time being sure where our interests really are. That's got to come before any kind of collaborative exploration. Is there a YA novel for the mid-to late teen set that's doing a good job of discussing a modern understanding of the aspects of sex and protection and the rollercoaster of emotions that will always come along as baggage? If not, there needs to be, and maybe a netflix miniseries adaptation of same. Not sure that there's any other way to get the info to the mid-teen crowd in a socially acceptable way.