Authors: Alfred Vernacchio
The second trap in talking about values is the misunderstanding that they are relative. My students are always trying to answer a values question with “it depends,” but they know it’s an answer I don’t accept. In my opinion, values relativism is just a cover for the value that’s really at work—sometimes it might be selfishness or narcissism, other times it might be fear of being different. I think values relativism is used as an excuse to escape responsibility for our choices, for being too scared to admit what our values really are, or for simply being too lazy to really figure out what values are at work in a given situation.
It’s essential when talking about values, and especially important in sexuality education, to distinguish between a fact, an opinion, and a value. A fact is something indisputable. Facts are sometimes argued, but they can be proved true with verifiable evidence. An opinion is a view or judgment formed about something—a fact, an event, a belief, a comment, anything. Opinions don’t always rest on a sound foundation. They can be informed or uninformed. They can be based on fact, supposition, emotion, or even pure speculation. They can be defendable or not. My students often think that their opinions should reign supreme—after all, it’s how they
feel
about something—but only by understanding the process used to form an opinion can we tell whether or not it’s worth anything. A value, as defined above, is a core belief that guides actions and decisions. It has more emotional resonance than an opinion, and is often felt with zealous conviction, but it’s not a fact. A value answers the “why” question at the deepest level.
To make these distinctions more clear, let’s look at a few examples:
Fact:
2 + 2 = 4
Opinion: Math is hard!
Value: Proficiency in computational skills is essential for a successful life.
Fact: Washington, DC, is the capital of the United States.
Opinion: Capitals should be the largest city in a state.
Value: Representational democracy should ensure equal access to all.
Fact: Same-sex marriage is legal in some states.
Opinion: Same-sex couples should have some legal rights but not the right to marry.
Value: The heterosexual family unit is the most valuable grouping in society.
Fact: Penile-vaginal intercourse is the mechanism through which humans reproduce.
Opinion: Adolescents should not participate in penile-vaginal intercourse.
Value: The procreative function of penile-vaginal intercourse is superior to any of its other functions.
In his book
Values and Teaching
, Louis Raths explores what he calls
valuing
, a process by which we can determine whether an idea is really one of our values or not. First, a value must be chosen freely from alternatives after careful consideration of its consequences. It cannot be something thrust upon us or adopted without significant forethought. Second, a value must be prized and publicly affirmed when appropriate. If we’re ashamed of it, won’t talk about it, or won’t defend it to others when called upon to do so, it isn’t a value. Third, and to my mind most important, a value must be acted upon consistently and repeatedly. If we say it but don’t do it, it’s not a value. If we follow it sometimes but not consistently, it’s not a value. It is only by understanding what our values really are that we can make sense of our choices. It’s also important to remember that values are aspirational. While we may strive to live according to our values all the time, we fail to do this simply because we are human. Guilt often results when we do something that goes against one of our values. But rather than letting guilt get the better of us and cause us to feel shame, we can use the feeling of guilt to our advantage, as a gentle reminder of what’s truly important to us. It can be a useful tool if we reframe it. While we will not be able to live up to our values in every moment of our lives, we should continually strive to make choices that support our values in every area of our lives.
Values are both personal and societal. There are countless institutions that offer values they think we should adopt as our own. Parents and families, schools, religious organizations, governments, media, and peers are just some of the groups that present us with rules for living. As adults we usually affiliate ourselves with groups and organizations that share our core values. I choose to teach at a school that espouses the values I hold dear. It’s a small, private school founded by the Religious Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers. Its bedrock beliefs include simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equality, and stewardship. But children seldom get to choose their early influences. They are born into families, sent to schools, brought to worship services, and bombarded with many forms of media. They are offered many different sets of values each day and must begin to make choices about which speak truth to them.
Because we may adopt different values from different sources, value conflicts often emerge. Common conflicts for adolescents involve family values versus those offered by peers or media, the value of immediate gratification versus planning for future consequences, and the value of self-interest versus the interests of others. Value conflicts are useful for helping us to determine what’s really most important to us, and sometimes the answers are not what we expect.
There is an activity at the end of this chapter called Twenty Things I Love to Do, which I use in class to help students begin to discover their values. It’s taken from
Values Clarification
, although I’ve tweaked it a bit. This is an activity you can do yourself or with your teenager. My students always find it enlightening. I hope you will too.
Valuing Sexuality
O
nce you complete the Twenty Things I Love to Do activity, you’ll notice that, although you completed the phrase “I love to” twenty times, you didn’t uncover twenty different values. Most people don’t have a laundry list of values to suit every activity or situation. In fact, having a lengthy values list is a sign, to me, that someone hasn’t really determined his or her core values. That’s not the way values work. Because they are the foundation upon which we build our lives, we generally have a small set of core values that continually guide our actions and find expression in a number of different areas of life. So it’s not that we have separate sexual values, political values, spiritual values, et cetera. We have values that express themselves in all of those areas, and those expressions should be consistent across those different areas. So as we begin to talk about sexual values, it’s important to keep in mind that most are expressions of more deep-seated values.
It’s also important to consider if our basic attitude toward sexuality leans toward positive or negative. Most people aren’t exclusively at either end of the spectrum, but neither are they exactly in the middle. Some people view sexuality as a fundamentally dangerous force. They see it as dirty or wild, and believe that if unrestrained, it can lead to lives of wanton hedonism. Others may have a negative orientation toward sexuality because of past incidents of abuse or sexual trauma. As you can see by the title of this book, my fundamental value about sexuality is that it is good. One of my most important mantras is, “Sexuality is a good gift from a good God.” I see sexuality as the force that allows us to be our most authentic, loving, and connected; it’s the best thing about being human. That may be a hard thing to believe for a person who is a survivor of sexual abuse or trauma, and I respect that. I’m not saying everyone has to have a positive orientation toward sexuality. I’m saying it’s important for each of us to look inward and see what our basic orientation toward sexuality is, to understand how that influences the decisions we make, and to become aware of the ways in which that orientation is expressed to our children. My positive orientation toward sexuality doesn’t mean that I have an “anything goes” attitude. In fact, because I believe sexuality is a force for good, my guidelines for behavior, whether in the classroom, in my relationships, or life in general, are actually quite stringent. Doing the thing that brings about the most authentic and loving result isn’t always doing the easiest thing. It doesn’t allow for selfishness, disregard of others, or falseness.
It might be easier to consider what your core values are by looking at some pairs of values and determining which guide your decisions more. Think of each pair as ends of a continuum and ask yourself where you fall on it.
• individuality vs. community
• hierarchy vs. equality
• secularity vs. spirituality
• introversion vs. extroversion
• cruelty vs. compassion
• authenticity vs. conformity
• isolation vs. attachment
• innovation vs. tradition
• self-interest vs. other interest
For example, here are different guidelines about sexual activity that can result from different core values:
• Sexual activity should be about love more than about sex.
• Pleasure should be the guiding principle in sexual activity.
• If I can get it, I’ll take it.
• In sexual activity, what I want matters less than what my partner wants.
• Safety is more important than pleasure.
• If my religion says it’s OK, then it’s OK.
• If I can tell my parents about it without feeling ashamed, then it’s OK.
Now think about the last few months of your life and any decisions you’ve made that involved sexuality. This can be anything from how you answered a question your children asked to what you chose to watch on television. Do those decisions seem in line with the core values you identified above? Here’s a more specific example: one of summer 2013’s biggest hits was the song “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke. It’s a catchy song with a great beat. You might have found yourself singing it in the car. But what if you come to the conclusion, as
Feminist in LA
blogger Lisa Huynh wrote, that it’s “a rape song”? Would you stop listening to it? Would you have a conversation with your kids about it? Values insert themselves into our lives every day in situations just like this. Or think about what happens when your child is headed out to a party dressed in clothing you think is inappropriate, or when your four-year-old decides to take off his or her clothes in the supermarket. Nudity, abortion, masturbation, sexting, privacy, body image, pornography, contraception, and even love: all of these topics will surface at some point with our children. If we want to help them navigate choices about these things, we’re going to be a lot more successful if we know how our core values affect them and if we can help our kids think about
their
values and the impact they have on
their
behavior.
One of my core values is equality, so lessons I teach and decisions I make about sexuality must treat people equally in terms of gender, sexual orientation, relationship status, et cetera. Because I value community over individuality, I think discussions about sexuality with others are valuable, instructive, and healthy. Because I do not value selfishness, I can’t condone sexual activity or relationships wherein only one party has access to pleasure or orgasm.
It’s essential for parents to talk with their children at every age about values. What are the family values that they are expected to abide by? Where are they free to determine their own values? What sources of values does the family consider to be especially important and which sources does the family reject? For example, do the values of your child’s school match your family values and, if not, where might they diverge? We do not always have the luxury of sending our children to schools that perfectly reflect our family values. So what do you say to your child when he or she comes home confused after learning at school that homosexuality is wrong, but they don’t see anything wrong with Uncle Joe and Uncle Jim who are a part of your family?
In the same way that parents make and display lists of chores for their children, it can be useful to have a list of the family’s core values displayed in a common area where they can be referenced and discussed. Making family values explicit is the best way to create ongoing dialogue and clear expectations for children and teens.
Helping our children develop a strong value system can certainly contribute to healthy sexuality. Of course we want to guide our children in the process of creating a value system, and we should be involved, but a moralizing approach—“do it because I say so”—doesn’t work.
Instead, I’d urge an approach in which an individual can freely choose his or her own values based upon guidance from trusted sources, exploration, information, careful consideration, and experience—what Simon, Howe, and Kirschenbaum call “value clarification.” In moralizing, the goal is to instill the parents’ values in their children. Value clarification, though, seeks to have a person develop a set of values that are
uniquely their own and defendable.
A Word About Language
O
K, so you’re starting to feel more prepared to have a conversation with your child or teen about sexual values. But how do you start? What language should you use? How can you increase the chance that your message will get through without your adolescent rolling his eyes or stomping out of the room? After all, talking about sexual values and sexuality in general can be difficult even with your peers (or your spouse!) because, as the Gloria Estefan song says, “Words Get in the Way.”
I think the words get in the way because people believe that there’s a “right way” to talk about sexuality, but that’s not true. There are many different paths to a successful conversation because there are many different languages of sexuality. Being multilingual and knowing which language will work in a given situation is the key.
In order to help my students understand the different languages of sexuality, I do a classic sex-ed activity. I put large sheets of paper around the room. At the top of each sheet is a term or phrase related to human sexuality. I ask my class to come up with as many different ways to say that term or phrase as they can, using words and phrases they’ve heard, read, or possibly used. The only rule is that they can’t invent new terms or phrases. The words at the top of the pages are
penis
,
vulva/vagina
,
breasts
,
masturbation
,
sexual intercourse
,
homosexual/heterosexual
, and
foot
(yes, the thing at the end of your leg). The students are timid at first, wondering whether they’ll get into trouble for writing down some of the language they use with each other. With encouragement from me, they loosen up and the room erupts into noise, laughter, applause, and sometimes disagreement. After they’ve exhausted their store of alternate language, we bring the sheets to the front of the room and display them prominently on the board. I always make the kids laugh by saying, “Just think how proud your parents would be! Look at all the cool words you know!” I add that I’ll post the sheets in the classroom on parents’ night. Some students assume I’m joking and laugh, while others look worried because they think I’m serious.