Healthy Sexuality as Quaker Testimony
Workshop # 46
Guli Fager and Seth Barch
Quakers are known to be open-minded, accepting, and compassionate toward a diversity of relationships, but there is no unified Quaker approach to teaching young Friends about sex. We will discern "personal testimonies" toward sex, explore our role as Quakers in American sexual culture, and learn from other Friends. (For Friends ages 16-20)
Percentage of time:
Worship/worship-sharing 20; Lecture 20; Discussion 50; Experiential 10
High school & AYF only
Full Description
Objectives:
- Increase participants knowledge of STI prevention, pregnancy prevention, and method use to best in class
- Increase understanding of sexual behaviors across the gender/sexuality spectrum and life course
- Increase tolerance of and understanding toward non-heterosexual/non-gender conforming people
- Increase understanding of gender and its relation to and distinctiveness from sexuality
- Create among participants the ability to engage others and adults around issues of teenage sexuality
- Address concerns about relationships and ethics in high school, college, and beyond
Possible Activities:
- Get some exercises online for creating peer educator/engagement among participants
- Collages that look at media portrayals of the following:
- Men
- Women
- LGB people
- Trans people
- People of color
- Safe sex (or lack thereof)
- HIV/AIDS and other STIs (and people who have them)
- Condom demonstration game
- Make a personal sexual timeline
- Advanced sex
Queries:
- How can we, as Friends, live truthfully in the midst of this media sex clutter?
- What should our role be in setting the record straight in society and in our own relationships/meetings?
- Recognizing our birth gender and the privileges or sufferings we encounter because of it, what is our role in relationships?
- What can we do in sexual relationships that honor our testimonies of simplicity, integrity, and equality?
- Do our sexual relationships and encounters honor that of God in ourselves and others?
