Dear Friends:
The other day, a show N and I were watching had one character accuse the other of being an imposter. ‘Ask me something only I could know!’ the accused said, frantically, guns drawn. That old scene.
‘Okay we need to get our thing squared away now,’ N said. ‘I don’t think I could come up with something good on the spot.’
It was a smart plan. I won’t tell you what we came up with, because then you could Face/Off me and whisk N away into a life of, well, whatever it is I don’t whisk him away to. (Maybe he’d prefer the imposter.)
Anyway, I share this as a public service. Do you have all your Somethings Only You Could Know squared away between you and your loved ones? No? Time to get to work.
Yours:
Dave
Endorsements
1. Aaron Peskin for Mayor of San Francisco
A friend once asked me, during a political disagreement, ‘Can’t millionaires have good policy ideas, too?’ And I had to think about my bias against the policy ideas of millionaires. It seems to me that the purpose of government is to give people what they need to flourish which (a) they can’t make/get themselves, and (b) the market can’t make a good enough profit from. For example: affordable housing, or a living wage. Millionaires flourish from a government as hands-off as possible, one that inevitably leaves the rest of us floundering, our futures insecure. Ergo: vote against the rich. There are 5 people running for mayor of San Francisco this year, 3 of whom are polling as top contenders. One is a millionaire who’s never held public office but wants, Trumpianly, to be in charge. The other is a millionaire with a long history of campaign ethics violations. The third is our current mayor who’s continually failed to present a vision for the future beyond More Cops Maybe? (She’s also backed by conservative billionaires.) Aaron Peskin is a longstanding city supervisor with the most grassroots fundraising of all the candidates (i.e., popular, not millionaire, support). I want to repeat this: more of us our giving what little we can to elect Peskin than any other candidate. Also, he’s the only progressive on the ballot. San Francisco has had a string of moderate/conservative mayors for nearly 40 years. Whatever problems you have with San Francisco, how can more of the same millionaire-backed policy ideas be the solution? If you, like me, are desperate for change, desperate for a city that works for everyone, please consider donating to help elect Aaron Peskin.
2. The Cortado
N has been on a journey this year of finding the best automated espresso machine for us (we’ve landed on the Jura S8, found for a steal on FB Marketplace), and on leisurely weekends I’ve been making myself cortados: a Spanish drink with an equal amount of steamed milk to ‘cut’ (cortar) the bitterness of the espresso. I do 2oz of each, espresso over steamed milk, and it’s a beautiful way to start a Saturday:
It’s a Goldilocks drink in that a caffè macchiato has too little milk and a cappuccino much too much. If you don’t have an espresso machine, you can usually order a cortado off-menu at any good coffee shop. Just not at Starbucks. Or if you must go to Starbucks, please try to do so at one of the 490-and-counting union stores.1 (And if your unionized Starbucks doesn’t know a cortado, you can order, again off-menu, a Short Cappuccino No Foam and it should do the trick.)
Sex Ed in the 1980s
Years ago, I read about Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE), specifically as it’s taught in the Netherlands, where conversations about love and bodies start in kindergarten, and as a result Dutch teens not only have lower pregnancy rates than U.S. teens, but they also more often agreed that their first time having sex was (a) wanted and (b) enjoyable.
Wistful sighs ensued. If only I could’ve had comprehensive sex ed when I was growing up!
Turns out I did:
In 1987, §22.1-207.1 of the Code of Virginia was amended to direct the Board of Education to develop standards of learning and curriculum guidelines for a comprehensive, sequential family life education (FLE) curriculum in grades K through 12.
Oh…. Wait, what now?
Well, to explain, this wasn’t implemented in the commonwealth until 1988, and there was no mandate to teach it (as of 2006, only 88 percent of school districts offered FLE). But I was a student in Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia’s largest district, so odds are we got it.
In 1988, I was 10, entering the fifth grade. Fifth graders, according to the FLE, will ‘identify reasons for avoiding sexual activity prior to marriage. The detrimental effects of premarital sex, including teenage pregnancy, infant mortality, and sexually transmitted diseases are emphasized, as well as the impact on one’s reputation and self-esteem.’
So that’s the kind of sex ed I got. Or half-got? Fifth graders will also ‘define the structure and function of the endocrine system,’ and like no way did I know that shit until my 20s.
The FLE wants tenth graders to recognize the need to abstain from premarital sexual intercourse and recognize alternatives: e.g. ‘talking, expressing ideas, social contacts, community service, positive body language.’ Eleventh graders should recognize advantages of abstinence from premarital sexual relations, reinforcing methods of saying ‘no’ to undesirable behavior, including methods of saying ‘no’ in ways that enable them to resist pressure from other teenagers and manage their own feelings and behavior.
Who, I wonder, are these ‘other teenagers’ in the minds of the people who wrote these standards? Teens from out of state? It’s funny how within the standards for abstinence is the acceptance that teenagers will want to have sex with teenagers. The real problem is seeing that as a danger.
This is sex negativity at work. Teenagers will also pressure you into sitting with them at the lunch table, or hanging out after school. They will pressure you into answering the question, ‘What’s your name?’ or ‘Do you want some gum?’
Resist!
These FLE standards have, then, a self-defeating quality. They assume that despite all this education, there’s no saving any sexual teen from getting pregnant.
It’s ludicrous. And like, this post isn’t even going to get into the heteronormativity of it all.
One cool thing about the 1987 FLE standards2 is that you’ll never see the term ‘abstinence education’ in them. That wasn’t added until 1999, after Bill Clinton’s ‘welfare reform’ created federal funding for abstinence-only education—thus fucking up the minds of kids with bullshit lies forever.3
Not to editorialize….
What I recall being taught in middle and high school wasn’t ‘wait for marriage’ so much as ‘the only method of birth control that is 100% effective is abstinence.’ Meaning I knew that condoms were mostly effective, somewhere in the 90s. Meaning I was taught about condoms, which abstinence-only education doesn’t talk about.
And, like, it wasn’t bad, Virginia’s sex ed. I mean: kindergarteners recognized that families come in many forms: traditional or two-parent families, extended families, single-parent families, adoptive families, foster families, and blended families. Sixth graders evaluated the messages from mass media related to sexuality and gender stereotyping, and also discussed nocturnal emissions and erections, menstruation, masturbation, and approaches to developing a positive attitude toward one's sexuality. Seventh graders recognized contributions of various racial and ethnic groups to family life and society, and increased their ability to listen to different points of view and respect the rights of others to a differing point of view.
The word ‘homosexuality’ doesn’t appear once in the FLE standards, but eighth graders recognized the development of sexuality as an aspect of the total personality, with discussion focused on the development of one’s sexual identity.
Again: no way I got any of that. But my point is that, as far back as the 1980s, Virginia wanted its students to think about their own sexual identity.
Amazing, if you think about it.
Also amazing: this learning outcome still exists in the latest FLE standards, from 2020. But now there’s all kind of abstinence education language in it (for federal $$$ purposes; no matter who wins the White House in November, the government will still fund only abstinence education).
That said, the 2020 standards are overall better. ‘STDs’ are now, rightly, called ‘STIs’. Second graders will now be conscious of how commercials use our emotions to make us want products. Seventh graders will develop an understanding of and responsibility for family planning, including methods of contraception. Ninth graders will demonstrate the ability to conduct breast and testicular self-examinations. And tenth graders will describe available birthing options, with birthing alternatives examined.
Does ‘birthing alternatives’ mean abortion? A better question: In a trial or hearing, can the commonwealth-approved inclusion of ‘birthing alternatives’ in the FLE standards save a public school teacher from a parent angry that their kid was taught about abortion?
Because that’s what standards do: they are language for legislators, school boards, parents—all people who never spend time in classrooms. The best standards, on any topic, let a teacher be a teacher: knowing their students and what they want to know, and helping them learn about the big enormous world in as skillful and compassionate a way as they can.
It’s beautiful, when you get to be a part of it.
Did your sex ed classes have that thing where you could write a question anonymously on an index card and the teacher would go through and answer them? I love this bit, the way it opens up learning to something more intimate and direct than standards documents.
In sex ed classes, I never had the courage to ask a question on an index card—what if they recognize my handwriting?—but now, as a teacher myself, I’m in love with this pedagogical tool. Maybe every class, about anything, should operate this way. Tell me, anonymously, what you privately wish to know, and I will teach it, publicly, to all of you together.
That way, we learn not just the subject at hand, but the curiosities and urgencies that are fueling our learning.
Wistful sigh time again.
This week’s thing I did not buy at the antique store is this campaign button I really should’ve bought at that antique store:
San Franciscans: ours include the one at 18th & Castro, and the one on Irving at 9th Ave.
And one million thanks to Oliver Jones, the research assistant I’m so lucky to have this term, for finding these documents.
The idea was a rider on the bill ‘to prevent teen pregnancy’ (i.e., the genesis of ‘welfare queens’), but oops: states preaching abstinence have worse teen pregnancy rates than states teaching CSE.