Thanks X, good find.
Some of the questions are answered--Accuracy in media takes a blow, I fear. What a shame.
The workshop's financing appears to be a somewhat confused event, but overall is described as a non-profit, privately funded one. The workshop was designed for teens- 14 and up- but adults were allowed in and-
gosh this makes me feel slightly sick- embarrassed to be an adult---
the kids allowed them to stay but asked that the content of the workshop be kept confidential. The adults agreed and then later proceeded to completely betray that trust.
That bothers me a lot-
particularly because so much misrepresentation of the workshop has gone on.
The purpose of the workshop was to allow these young adults a forum to ask and learn what they can't IN SCHOOL.
It did not tell us whether parents were privy to the content, or had to give permission for participation. Or whether the discussion strayed far from its intended purpose.
When I was ten or eleven, I came home one day and over my glass of milk and slice of sugarbread, I asked my mother, a true 50s momclone, if it were true that you could get pregnant when a boy put his finger in you.
She blanched and busied herself wiping the already sparkling clean tabletop, "Who told you that?"
"We were talking about it at recess," I said, all innocence.
"No it's not true, and nice girls don't talk about things like that. Now go practice your piano." Discussion closed.
I think that to discuss the possibility of getting HIV from swallowing (oh dear, I can't type the word) well- fluids, may be similar in horror value to some of my generation as pregnancy was to my mother's.
I was left to founder on a sea of misinformation about my own body, its wants, its development, its value. I can only guess at the agony of an adolescent dealing with homosexual desires and faced with a wall of fear, disapproval, rejection and isolation. |
