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Kids don’t expect you to know everything. What they’re really looking for is a safe adult—someone who listens without judgment, tells the truth without shame, and makes it okay to be curious. The conversation about porn isn’t just about screens or sex acts; it’s about the bigger things: values, relationships, respect, and safety. It’s a chance to help your son understand the difference between performance and connection, between what he sees online and what he deserves in real life.
Read MoreWe do young people a disservice by operating under the assumption that a list of warning signs or an affirmative acronym will be enough to help them effectively communicate within healthy relationships. Instead, we need to engage boys in open and honest conversation about what is difficult, challenging or confusing for them with regard to consent—beyond just stop signs.
Read MoreI think it’s time we have THE talk.
Sex isn’t the most comfortable subject to talk about for some people, but to promote sexual health among the next generation we need to break the silence.
And let’s be honest with ourselves, the “sex talk” is overdue for an overhaul.
Read MoreIf you talk to adults about their experience with sex education at school there seem to be three camps: some will tell you that they were only taught easily forgettable talking points, others actively try to forget the more damaging messages they learned, and the remaining few would give their education a positive review.
Sex education has changed over the years, but one thing has remained constant: the separation of boys and girls during sex ed class.
Read MoreAs we work towards a culture of justice, love and communicative collaboration, Creating Consent Culture is a well-researched, detailed and facilitator-oriented set of ideas and workshop outlines to help us on the way.
Read MoreBeyond well-worn stereotypes about shutting down or hooking up, teenage boys want to feel close, and loved, and they want to talk with their parents about their relationships. Seriously.
Read MoreRemember that ‘raising awareness’ is a means to an end. We raise awareness so that we can act with awareness, and bring awareness to our work. The next time that another awareness day, or another tragedy, has mental health is in the headlines, skip past all the thought-pieces and amplify the voices that speak of action.
Read MoreLast week, I was part of a workshop about sex ed, facilitated by adolescent sexuality expert Dr. Nadine Thornhill and hosted by Toronto-based consent organization Bad Subject.
Read MoreWe are extremely concerned by Ontario’s decision to revert back to the Health and Physical Education curriculum, last updated in 1998. Ontario’s sex ed curriculum was updated in 2015 in consultation with roughly 4,000 parents, and was designed and written by experts in child development, internet safety, police, and social workers.
Read MoreA stark example to me that men are the dominant sex is in literature. Women read books by men, about men, but it is few and far between that I see men reading books by women, about women. In an effort to educate myself, I’m reading Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist in which she highlights this in one of her essays.
Read More*ALWAYS seek consent. But what I mean to say, in the wake of the Aziz Ansari story, is that it’s time for men and women to work together towards a new definition of consent. Let’s call the old version of ‘no means no’ the bare minimum, and the new version of ‘are you enjoying yourself?’ to be best practices.
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