**Please forward widely to your networks
**Apologies for cross-posting
CUHI Youth Sexual Health RIG Seminar Series
“Notes on No: Abstinence and the
Problem of Thinking in Sex Education”
Jen Gilbert, Ph.D.
Faculty of Education, York University
Wednesday October 28th, 2009, 1:30-3:00 pm
York University, Room 280N, York Lanes
For Directions: http://www.yorku.ca/yorkweb/maps/keele.htm
Free, all are welcome, please RSVP to [log in to unmask]
This
paper explores the problem of prohibition in sex education. Drawing on a
two-year study of the language of abstinence in the United States, I consider many
of the different ways that adults and youth use “no” in sex
education. Feminists and other have critiqued the use of “no” as a
restrictive and punitive gesture, containing sexuality’s potential in the
lives of youth, particularly girls, youth of color, and LGBT youth. While I
recognize the importance of these critiques, I take a detour through
psychoanalytic theories of negation and consider the ways “no” can,
often unwittingly, make room for thinking and thoughtfulness. I ask, how might sex
education be a problem of and for thinking? And, how might the prohibitions
that circulate through sex education create the conditions for thinking while
also working to shut thinking down? To make sex education a problem of thought,
as opposed to a problem of action or inaction, is to insist that what matters
most in sex education is that youth and adults become able to tolerate what is
most intolerable about sexuality—its beginnings in the helplessness of
infancy, its capacity to unsettle our sense of self and other, its sheer
uselessness, its saturation with meaning and its entanglement in relations of
authority. I aim through my exploration to consider how we, in sex education,
might notice how we are mired in this difficult inventory of the human
condition.
Dr. Gilbert is an Associate Professor in
Education specializing in theories of sexuality, adolescence and psychoanalytic
theories of teaching and learning. Her research addresses both the field of
sexual health education and, more generally, curriculum theory and teacher
education. Of particular interest is how literature and film might be used to
theorize relations of sexuality and open up conversations with teachers and
students about this difficult terrain. Her SSHRC-funded research project,
“Between Curiosity and Human Rights: Psychoanalytic Investigations of
Sexuality in Early Childhood and Teacher Education,” explores the
theories of sexuality that teacher candidates bring with them into their work
with young children. She is also working on a collaborative project
investigating the meanings of abstinence in adolescents’ lives.
Please see our website for upcoming seminar summaries and
other events: www.cuhi.utoronto.ca.
Carolyn Quinn
CUHI Administrative Assistant
Work-Study Student
Centre for Urban Health Initiatives (CUHI)
University College, Room 259
University of Toronto
15 King's College Circle
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H7
416-978-7223
FAX:416-946-0669