Kirsten Michelle Cills
Hello. Hello and welcome to So Curious!, presented by The Franklin Institute.
The Bul Bey
We are your host. And I am the Bul Bey.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
And I am Kirsten Michelle Cills. Bey and I are so stoked to bring you this season that talks all about the science behind love, sex, and relationships. Everything from your brain on love, to why we obsess over our favorite television characters, to how science and tech are changing our relationships with each other.
The Bul Bey
For this episode, let’s talk about how we all learn about sex in the first place. First, we’ll talk with Jaclyn Friedman about her work teaching people of all ages about our bodies, sex, and healthy relationships.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
And later, we’re going to talk with Janielle Bryan about her ten years of experience introducing sex education curriculum in schools.
The Bul Bey
This episode of So Curious! is going to be sex-educational. What do you remember about your experience of sexual education?
Kirsten Michelle Cills
So my first sex ed class was being a little kid home sick from school, and my mom couldn’t take any more days off, and she was the high school sex ed teacher, so I would sit in the back of the classroom and color or whatever. And I was little, but not processing what they were all saying, but being like, this is silly. And then I remember growing up, I went to public school, so I wouldn’t say that the sex education was excellent, but it was something. I definitely felt like I was that little know-it-all in class because I was like, “um, actually.” Because that’s how my mom raised me to be about sex ed. How about you, Bey? What do you remember from sex ed — in the Philly public school, right?
The Bul Bey
Yeah, 100%. I remember it being clunky and not really straightforward, just all over the place. I remember, like, a stop in the school day. Us and several other classes would go into, I guess, an auditorium or a presentation room and watch slides. It was kind of like a shock factor kind of a thing. But I just remember it being awkward for everyone, even the adults. You could tell they didn’t really want to engage with sex ed in this particular manner.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah.
The Bul Bey
And I remember also not really being clear about what they were clearly warning us about. All of this was like, “warning, warning!” And I just didn’t know. I was like, what are they warning us about? I didn’t quite get it.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
I feel like you can always tell that your teachers are clearly being censored by what the school wants them to say versus what they, as adults who care about us, want to say.
The Bul Bey
Awkward all around.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah. Right.
The Bul Bey
Let’s face it, there’s a lot about sex that we never learned in school.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Or at least not from actual teachers in school.
The Bul Bey
So I think this is a good place to introduce our first guest, who knows quite a bit about how to help people keep learning real facts about sex and relationships. In our modern world. Our guest is Jaclyn Friedman. Hey!
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Hey.
Jacyln Friedman
Hey!
The Bul Bey
Really quickly, can you introduce yourself and what you do?
Jacyln Friedman
Yeah, sure. My name is Jaclyn Friedman. I use she/her pronouns. And I am the founder and executive director of Educate US: SIECUS In Action, which is a national advocacy group building a movement of voters who are going to vote in good sex ed policy at the ballot box.
The Bul Bey
Beautiful. You know, something I appreciate is laying out the pronouns in introduction. Do you see that being a more common practice or people still slow to develop that in their, I guess, social language, social cues.
Jacyln Friedman
I think it depends on who you hang out with.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Very much. I was going to say, I went to college in Center City, Philadelphia, in the Gayborhood, for acting. So we always used pronouns in everything we did. And then after graduating and not being around such a progressive scene, I was like, oh, this is not universal yet. It’s not everywhere. It’s totally about your own crowd.
Jacyln Friedman
Yeah. But as you might imagine, in my work meetings, which are mostly with folks who advocate for sex education and related issues, it is pretty much the standard.
The Bul Bey
Right.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Which is great. Yeah. First of all, I just want to say how in all of your work, I am. I grew up my whole life. My mom was a high school sex ed teacher, and now as an adult, I’m a stand-up comic, and I travel around to colleges to talk to 18-year-olds about consent and rape culture and all of this stuff. And “yes means yes,” and, “no such thing as implied consent.” And I just am so passionate about what you do, so I’m super happy that you’re here.
Jacyln Friedman
I did that circuit myself for a while. Yeah, because my first book was called “Yes Means Yes,” and popularized the idea of affirmative consent.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yes.
Jacyln Friedman
And so I spent the better part of a decade being the consent lady on college campus. I’m so glad you picked up the torch.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
I talk so much about affirmative consent, how it needs to be verbal, sober, and mutual, and so much of that comes from your work. So I’m super stoked that you’re here. And I guess I was just curious off the bat, how did you get into this? What was your path to get into this career?
Jacyln Friedman
It was a long and winding path.
The Bul Bey
Once upon a time…
Jacyln Friedman
I mean, people ask me that, and I think a lot of times they want to know, how do I do this? And I have to say, like, when I was graduating college, I didn’t know this was a career I could have, so I did not set out to have it. But what I did do was just set out to continually do things I’m passionate about, right?
Jacyln Friedman
And so I had a series of jobs. I did suicide prevention education with teachers, and I taught self-defense, and I worked at a feminist bookstore and ran an author series of feminist books. I was in my 20s just doing work that was interesting to me and trying to pay the bills. And in the in-between, I was an anti-sexual-violence advocate. And that’s what led me ultimately to publish “Yes Means Yes,” with Jessica Valenti, which was really coming to understand that if we’re going to address sexual violence, we have to really just shift the entire sexual culture. And then once you start thinking about that, it does not take that long to start thinking about needing to change the way we teach sex education in this country.
The Bul Bey
Would you say that these changes need to happen faster, or are they happening at a good pace as you see it?
Jacyln Friedman
Well, right now we’re having a backlash.
The Bul Bey
Talk more about that.
Jacyln Friedman
I think that there are a solid constituent minority of folks in this country who are very uncomfortable with the changes that have been happening over the last decade or two about the shift in the sexual culture, the shift in understanding and acceptance that, like, gender and sexual orientation are diverse, fascinating fields, and everybody’s a little different. Right? And that stuff makes them very uncomfortable. And right now, they’re waging, basically a war on kids and a war on schools to try and stop it. And so I think that’s really being contested right now.
The Bul Bey
What would you say to someone experiencing discomfort from sex education?
Jacyln Friedman
I would say that’s really normal, because almost none of us got the sex education we deserved. I mean, you might have your mom was a sex educator. But, like, most of us did not have sex educator moms and didn’t get the sex education we deserved. And I think that there can be this feeling like, “well, I didn’t get that, and I’m fine, right? I grew up fine.” And I think that what I would say to folks who feel uncomfortable is like, yeah, I feel you! This stuff makes people uncomfortable. But just because you’re uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
The Bul Bey
What would you say the effect would be if sex education were to be taken out of school?
Jacyln Friedman
I absolutely am against that. Now, a lot of schools around the country don’t teach it already or are teaching harmful stuff, as opposed…Which I would like to get taken out of the schools. I’d rather kids learn nothing than actively harmful stuff that promotes shame and misinformation. But I certainly wouldn’t want to see any schools taking out quality sex education that they’re already teaching. If you scratch the surface with most parents, they’ll admit that they don’t know how to teach their kids about this stuff any more than we know how to teach our kids, like AP physics, right? I think a lot of parents, during the pandemic, learned to really respect teachers and miss them.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
You should hope so, right.
Jacyln Friedman
Parents absolutely have a huge role to play in talking to their kids about values around sexuality and relationships. But these are legitimate fields of study and you can learn how to teach them well, and most parents don’t want to and aren’t equipped to teach them as well as a teacher in school does. It’s really a group effort. Like the parent needs to share values at home, and the teacher needs to share the information in a way kids can absorb.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
When my mom was teaching, she was teaching in like the Philadelphia School district in, I’m going to say like the late 90s. And I remember that there was a huge push from the school district that she was not allowed to teach them how to use condoms, or even hand out condoms. And I remember she had like…hundreds, in our car, so that she could give them to students, like low-key, if they needed. And I remember one time she got pulled over and she went to pull out her license and registration and hundreds of condoms came out.
Jacyln Friedman
Oh my God, that’s amazing!
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah, she’s ahead of her time.
Jacyln Friedman
I mean, God bless the sex educators who are getting the education to young people no matter what it takes, including your mom. That’s amazing.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
I’ve heard this quote, and I think it’s definitely about parenting, but I think it applies much larger, which is overprotective. Parents don’t make good kids, they make sneaky kids. Your kids aren’t going to stop doing something. People aren’t going to stop having sex because you don’t tell them about it. They’re just going to do it in a very unsafe way. So I love that you hit on that.
Jacyln Friedman
And that shame, the sneakiness that comes out of shame or fear of punishment, also means that if your daughter or son or non-gender-identifying kid doesn’t feel like they can talk to you, and something’s going wrong in their relationship, they’re genuinely in a lot of danger. That silence isn’t just like bad and icky and drives a wedge between you and your kids, but actually can really put your kids in danger if they don’t know that they can go to you if they’re being hurt.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Absolutely.
Jacyln Friedman
And I don’t think enough parents think about that side of it because parents really want to feel like they have control. And I understand that.
The Bul Bey
Yeah, yeah.
Jacyln Friedman
We all want to feel like we have control.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Right.
The Bul Bey
Where would you say the LGBTQIA+ youth fit into sex education? Are they represented? Are they not? Is there any language for them?
Jacyln Friedman
Well, let’s talk about that. That brings me to sort of the last bucket that I didn’t talk about, of types of sex ed that are taught in some schools in America, which tends to get called “comprehensive sex education.” I don’t love calling it that, because nobody knows what that means. I tend to call it “inclusive, quality sex and relationships education.”
The Bul Bey
And add a plus in!
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah.
Jacyln Friedman
Exactly! And that kind of curriculum really is LGBTQ inclusive and affirming. So a lot of the times when you get “abstinence+” stuff, it’s really still focused on not getting girls pregnant, and assumes that only heterosexual sex is happening. It’s only when you get to comprehensive sex ed that you have the kind of sex education that recognizes that kids come in all flavors and have a bunch of different kinds of attractions and interests and identities and that they’re all fundamentally okay.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
I’m curious about which of your essays that you have written means the most to you. Do you have any that you’ve gotten a surprising response from people?
Jacyln Friedman
This is, like a genuinely impossible question. The essay that comes to mind when you ask me the one that meets the most to me — which basically means it’s what means the most to me right now, like, what’s on my heart — is an an essay I wrote some years ago after Caitlin Jenner came out as trans and was on the cover of Vanity Fair. And there was a whole furor about who gets to call themselves a woman. It’s an essay that I wrote for Dame magazine, which I think is still online somewhere, about my experiences dating and being with a trans man who decided to medically transition, and being vulnerable that I struggled with that, right? And talking about, “yeah, I get it.” I get the questions, I get the discomfort that comes up for people. But here’s what I came to understand through that process, which is basically that trans people don’t owe us anything. Like, that they’re just trying to live their lives, and they don’t need to be ideal feminists or any other thing. They just need to get to be people who define their own lives. That was a really vulnerable thing to write, because it doesn’t exactly show me in the best light.
Jacyln Friedman
You know, I would like to write an essay that was like, “I didn’t have a moment’s hesitation!” And I got some pushback. But I’m of the belief that when you invite people to identify with your vulnerability, it helps them be more vulnerable. And I think that we need more humility and curiosity, those of us who are cis, about trans people and trans identities and trans lives right now.
The Bul Bey
I love the fact that you brought up curiosity because, of course, this is the So Curious! podcast.
Jacyln Friedman
I’m just pandering. [laughter]
The Bul Bey
Yes, please continue to do so. The thing that stood out to me in what you just said is, “deciding and choosing.” And I’m curious what making a choice does to the brain wiring or neurons. Like being secure enough, seen enough, comfortable enough, safe enough to say, “I choose this.” I don’t know, maybe there’s parts of the brain that light up, and you feel great about it and it releases endorphins. Not sure — we probably should bring on a scientist to talk about this stuff — but that kind of stood out to me when you talked about, I guess, a trans person just being a person, deciding to just be, and letting them make those decisions, letting someone choose, and that kind of ties back into consent as well. Choosing is such a powerful thing. It’s such an affirming thing. And I’m just curious what that does to the brain and therefore the nervous system, and therefore the heart and the lungs and all those other different things.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah, and like, the idea of teaching young children young about ideas, like, “it’s your body.” And so much, I feel like, has come from that movement because we’re teaching young children the basic things of, like, I used to nanny a three-year-old, and something that the parents would always say is, “adults shouldn’t have secrets with kids. And if an adult ever has a secret with you, that shouldn’t be happening, and you need to come and tell us.” That’s not stuff that was talked about even when I’m 27, even when I was three years old. And now the push I’ve been seeing with friends who are having kids and the idea of, “no, my kid doesn’t have to hug their great aunt if they don’t want to at Thanksgiving.” And the great aunt is probably not going to like that, but they don’t have to.
Jacyln Friedman
That is one of the best ways to lay the groundwork for consent, because that’s consent, right? It’s not sexual. I mean, it’s important when you’re being sexual with somebody else, but consent is about bodily autonomy, bodily sovereignty. Like, your body is yours, and you get to decide who interacts with it and how. Now, with really little kids, that’s a little more complicated because parents have to keep them safe and healthy. And so sometimes you have to brush your teeth when you don’t want to. I have so many friends who have raised kids who’ve texted me and been like, “you ruined this.” I taught them consent, and now they’re like, “my body is mine!” and they won’t shower.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah, “no bath time!”
The Bul Bey
Woof. That’s rough.
Jacyln Friedman
That’s complicated. But it’s actually so important because by the time it gets to be applied to sexual interactions, it’s completely second nature. And when kids know they have the right to be treated that way, it’s easier for them to recognize that everybody else has the right to be treated that way.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Is there any particular thoughts that you hope people take away from your messaging, when you speak or you write, that it is what you would want someone — in a sentence or a paragraph — to take away?
Jacyln Friedman
What I want people to take away is that we all have the right to love and be loved on our own terms, and we also have the right to know all the things we need to know in order to make that happen.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
That’s perfect. Thank you so much for joining us, Jaclyn. It was such a pleasure to talk to you.
The Bul Bey
Jaclyn Friedman, thank you so much for this conversation and insights. We really, really, greatly appreciate it. And thank you for being on the So Curious! podcast.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah, thank you so much.
Jacyln Friedman
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
The Bul Bey
What I really appreciate most about what she said was it seemed like she was prioritizing comfort in engaging in the dialogue. There’s a lot of discomfort around just sex in public spaces: speaking about it, talking about your own urges and all those different things. And so eliminating shame is kind of like the first step to engaging with it honestly and openly. And then finding useful factual information, because we’re all making decisions about our health, and getting rid of shame is one of the first things to do.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah. You hear this a lot about mental health. People say, “mental health IS health.” And sexual health IS health, right? It’s a huge part of our lives. I think it’s just so cool that — obviously someone has to start this conversation. I love that she did it.
The Bul Bey
No matter what age we are, this kind of info matters. It helps people make healthy decisions around both our mental and physical health. But as we’re seeing in the U.S., guidelines for teaching sex and sexuality in schools are in flux. Luckily, there are experts out there today who are rethinking sex ed and giving kids the information they need.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Today we are joined by Janielle Bryan. Janielle, tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you do? Where are you from?
Janielle S. Bryan
Sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Janielle So, I am a health educator, professor, sex educator. My work lies in the intersection between health equity and pleasure. I’m also the creator of a web series called “Sex Redefined,” where I talk to marginalized voices about what sex means to them and the future of sexuality.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Heck yeah.
The Bul Bey
What’s an example of how a person’s socioeconomic status can impact their access to health services and thus the quality of their lives?
Janielle S. Bryan
If we look at COVID, for example, most of the people who have passed away due to COVID, it was because of underlying conditions. And these underlying conditions are specifically linked to their economic status, whether that is asthma due to environmental toxins, heart disease, diabetes. All of these comorbidities that they were already experiencing are amplified because of their social-economic status. If you look at redlining, which happened in the 1930s, two-thirds of the communities that were redlined still experience poorer health outcomes than neighboring neighborhoods. So our economic status, unfortunately, in this country, in this capitalist society, is directly linked to our health.
The Bul Bey
And to break it down to basic terms, you’re talking about what you can afford, right?
Janielle S. Bryan
Yes.
The Bul Bey
What health services you have access to based on the money you may or may not have.
Janielle S. Bryan
Right, and even where you live. Philadelphia is known to be a “food desert.” So even if you do have the money, if you don’t have access, do you really have choice?
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah. So my question for you is, in your experience, in your field, what are some of the biggest differences you’ve noticed between communities? For example, like a more affluent community versus a more marginalized community, as far as sex ed and health goes?
Janielle S. Bryan
Ooh. A quick breakdown: so there’s 50 states and DC, right? Only 39 states in the country mandate sex ed. So the jurisdiction of sex ed goes to the states. So that means they can say whether or not they teach it, and what they teach. Of those 39 states, I believe about 20 say that their sex ed has to be medically accurate. That means the information that they teach is published by a medical professional. Which means that, literally, they can teach anything they want to. And also, these are only in public schools that they have jurisdiction over. So right there, state to state and school to school, you’re already looking at disparities in sex ed.
The Bul Bey
What’s so interesting about that is even from the starting point, you say only 39 states.
Janielle S. Bryan
Only 39 states and D.C.
The Bul Bey
So as a country, we’re already kind of behind the eight ball. We’re not all on the same page.
Janielle S. Bryan
We’re not. And Pennsylvania also does not mandate sex ed.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Which is insane! I was telling Bey about how I grew up with a mom who was a sex ed teacher in the Philadelphia School District, and we lived in the suburbs, but she worked in the Philly School District. And I remember her saying what a struggle it was just trying to get the school district to do, quote unquote, comprehensive sex education, right, using things like being able to give them condoms and things like that, and the school just being like, “no, it’s abstinence encouraged.” Whatever you want to call it.
Janielle S. Bryan
Yes. And it’s still the same way, even now. Even though sex ed isn’t mandated, if you are teaching sex ed, it has to be “abstinence encouraged” in Pennsylvania.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Which is so wild to me because I went to a high school, like in Montgomery County, right outside of Philly, and I wouldn’t say it was abstinence encouraged…Well, it kind of was. I guess it’s kind of like, now that I’m an adult, I’m like, “oh, damn.” Did they actually kind of encourage it? Because it was basically… I don’t know what. Bey, did you, you were in the Philly school district?
The Bul Bey
Absolutely, I was in public school. And I think we’re all collectively as adults, looking back at everything that we’ve been taught, and then like, “Whoa, that wasn’t the best.” Because for me, it was shock value. I don’t know if that was the same for you. It was just like you get into a room, they put on a projector, and here’s a bunch of terrifying pictures.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah.
Janielle S. Bryan
Yeah. I’ve seen chlamydia up close. More than I want.
The Bul Bey
Right!
Kirsten Michelle Cills
And I remember they made us watch footage of a late-term abortion, and I remember feeling so sick to my stomach because I’m watching this very live graphic, whatever you want to call it, like…surgery. And it was completely a scare tactic. They’re using it by saying, “if you have sex, you’re going to have to have this surgery.” Yeah. It’s insane.
The Bul Bey
It’s interesting how we respond to pleasure, and this is kind of a segue, because your website says that you want to focus on pleasure as a means of political change and positive force towards social equity. Could you explain that? And, Can pleasure be like a data point? Are we talking about, like, five “yeahs,” three “ohs,” and six moans? How do you make this into data, and then study it and communicate to the world about this?
Janielle S. Bryan
Yes. And there are people doing sex ed research now, and research about pleasure. And I’m a dork, so that really excites me. But when we talk about social equity, we talk about politics and policy, there is power in pleasure. We hear all the time that you can’t pour from an empty cup, and it’s kind of played out, but it’s true. When you are feeling good and feeling at your best, you’re able to find community with others. And that is power. That community makes changes, as we have seen, and we’re going to continue to see. So using pleasure as just a jumping-off point, you’re able to connect with other people. You’re able to do the work that is needed to make change.
The Bul Bey
Can you make a pie chart out of pleasure? Can you do that? Can you make data spreads out of pleasure points, or measuring pleasure?
Janielle S. Bryan
I’m sure you can. You can make data points out of everything.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
[Inaudible robotic sounds] I’m so sorry, Siri wants to know about pleasure.
Janielle S. Bryan
She can join in too!
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Sorry.
Janielle S. Bryan
Nah, you’re good. When I say “pleasure,” I’m not using that as a euphemism for sex. I mean pleasure, and the definition of pleasure is enjoyment, right.” And that looks different for everyone, also.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah. I hear you have a web series.
Janielle S. Bryan
I do.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Janielle S. Bryan
Sure. So it’s called “Sex Redefined.” I’m just talking to marginalized voices about what sex means to them. I’ve been teaching sex ed for over ten years now, and I enjoy that. I’m a professor, but I recognize that my students are privileged. Like, if you’re sitting in my class, you have the means or you have found the means, to be here for me to teach you. And I want to make education accessible. Sex ed should be accessible. So just by having these conversations and putting them online, I feel like it’s able to educate people in a different way. And like you talked about your sex ed in school. Sex ed can look so many different ways. It shouldn’t be scare tactics; it shouldn’t be pictures or videos. It could be conversations held in safe spaces. And allowing people into those conversations to watch them also have conversations of their own.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
In a perfect world, where you get to run the public school system in the whole United States, what age or what grade do you think is the time in which we should start enforcing these thoughts into students?
Janielle S. Bryan
I’ve taught sex ed as young as five years old.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Wow, that’s awesome.
Janielle S. Bryan
Yeah. I’m not talking about, you know, “penis and vagina.” I’m talking about consent. That’s usually where I start because people having agency over their own body is so important, and that impacts your sex life. That impacts your life, period, as you move through it. So having conversations…it is not a conversation; we SHOULD be talking about sex — I mean, for me, all the time — but throughout the lifespan. Because as we change, we need to have information that changes with us. So having these conversations, especially from a young age, helps normalize the conversation. So it’s not weird or awkward. It’s like, oh, I’ve heard these terms before, and these are just body parts. They’re not sexualizing…The word “penis” or “vagina,” it’s not a scary word. It’s a word, and it’s a body part that some people have.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
When I’m thinking about my first sex ed class, like the first three classes of the semester was just everybody getting the giggles out because everybody’s like, “I’ve never said the word vagina to a teacher before.”
The Bul Bey
Yeah, what if you get those giggles out at five? So by the time you’re twelve, you can now have a full, you know…
Kirsten Michelle Cills
And then we’re going to one day, hopefully have five-year-olds who are more mature than like, 50-year-olds who are like, “don’t talk about sex.”
The Bul Bey
It’s absolutely happening.
Janielle S. Bryan
Yes.
The Bul Bey
These kids are…Evolved.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
How have stories that you’ve heard from, specifically people of color, in terms of pleasure been neglected to be told?
Janielle S. Bryan
Yeah, so, across the board, sex is something that’s spoken about in this country. But when it is spoken about, or when you see it in the media, the people are young, white, able-bodied, skinny, conventionally attractive…all of these things…heterosexual, all of these things, an amalgamation of that person — that is not representative of most of our population. So if you don’t see yourself in that, it’s hard to know that you’re deserving of it. Representation matters across the board, even with sex. So if you are seeing these people having pleasure but you never see yourself, you start wondering, am I deserving of it? Or can I talk about this out loud? Because the only people that get to talk about it are people that look like that, and that’s not me.
The Bul Bey
I so appreciate you bringing that up. There’s a show on a streaming platform, I don’t know if I want to call it out or anything like that, but on this show, there’s a scene in one of the latest seasons where there’s a differently-abled person’s sex scene. And I was just so struck by that, that they would take that on. It was done in such a loving and gentle and caring way. I was blown away. I was like, this is cool. They should win an award for this.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
I was going to say, I’m still a young white girl in her 20s and all of that, but I have a terminal lung disease and so I’m often on oxygen and no one ever prepared me for how to have sex with oxygen on. That was never something I ever saw portrayed. I never felt comfortable asking doctors, like, can I take it off? All of that. And yeah, like you said, seeing examples of non-able-bodied people still finding ways to achieve pleasure. Because you hit on something really excellent, which is it’s almost like people view pleasure as a luxury. As though if you aren’t of a certain class, of a certain race, of a certain sexuality, gender, you don’t get it. You have to earn it, in a sense. Which is such a mess up.
The Bul Bey
My mind is blown right now. Keep going.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah. I’m sure this has been said before. I don’t think I’m revolutionizing it, but yeah, the idea that we all have to earn pleasure, that if you’re born more affluent, you’re born whiter, you’re born more heterosexual, more in the gender norms, then you automatically get pleasure. Whereas other people have to earn it. Yes.
Janielle S. Bryan
Yep. We have to work for it, right?
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yes. Right. And I’m also curious, so you’ve been in this field, you said, for ten years, right? Have you seen anything major that you’ve been able to see as a big positive change in the last ten years?
The Bul Bey
Give us some hope.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Yeah. Right.
Janielle S. Bryan
Oh gosh, yes, change is happening. Sorry, not let’s not say, “big,” but we are taking steps, and that is very important. For better or for worse, social media — has its issues — but it has helped, because people are able to find community with like-minded folks on the Internet and on social media. And no matter what age I’ve taught, people just want to feel seen. They want to feel, quote-unquote, normal. That they’re not the only person doing what they’re doing. So to be able to just open your phone and to see other people that look like you, that you identify with, doing the thing that you want to do, that you have secretly been doing, or you want to get into, is powerful. The ability to make connections in that way has been revolutionary.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Do you have anything that stands out that you’ve experienced with a student? Something that was upsetting, maybe because it was a lack of prior knowledge, or maybe something on the opposite? Have you had any meaningful stories that stick out?
Janielle S. Bryan
So many stories, but I’m just thinking about something that happened recently. I was working with this organization and they’re like, “hey, can you come in and talk to our students?” And these are students who are on the autism spectrum, because a student got expelled and her parents fought it. Because the students went home, asked their parents about sex. Like, “what is sex?” The parents kind of clammed up. They’re like, “oh, it’s something that Moms and Dads do.” So the next day, the student went to school and Googled “mom dads sex,” in the school computer.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
And they got expelled?
Janielle S. Bryan
And they got expelled! And the parents came in and they talked to the school and they talked to the teachers and they fought it, as they should. But also, it just shows how important sex ed is because the parents, they recognize they didn’t know how to have that conversation. But also that even though you don’t have the words to have that conversation, that doesn’t mean the kids aren’t going to look it up. That doesn’t mean they’re not going to want to know.
The Bul Bey
And I find it so ironic in that the child was looking to learn. The child was very curious and wanted information. And as an education space, we should be nourishing that, in some way. Expelling someone seems like the exact opposite. “Oh, you want to learn about something?”
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Because this child will always have some sort of negative connotation when it comes to sex, some feeling of shame because they were punished for wanting to learn. Wow, that’s a really interesting story. That’s awesome.
The Bul Bey
Yeah, 100%.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Janielle, thank you so much for coming. First of all, I really appreciate you. This was incredibly enlightening.
The Bul Bey
It was.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
Thank you to Janielle Bryan and Jaclyn Friedman. And that’s a wrap for today’s episode. But next week, we are branching out in how we think about relationships. And we are talking all about non-monogamy: relationships beyond just two partners.
The Bul Bey
Mnemonena!
Kirsten Michelle Cills
This and more on next week’s episode. And please subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen..
The Bul Bey
I am the Bul Bey.
Kirsten Michelle Cills
I am Kirsten Michelle Cills, and we will see you all next week.
The Bul Bey
See you guys!
The Bul Bey
So Curious! is presented by The Franklin Institute. Special thanks to Franklin Institute producers Joy Montesco and Dr. Jayatri Das. This podcast is produced by Radio Kismet. Radio Kismet is Philadelphia’s premier podcast production studio. Head of operations is Christopher Plant. The managing producer is Emily Charish. The producer is Liliana Green. The lead audio engineer and editor is Christian Cederlund. The editors are Lauren DeLuca and Justin Berger. The science writer is Kira Vayette. And the graphic designer is Emma Sager.
