Transcript | Ask Unladylike: The D*ck Pic Talk

[00:00:00] CRISTEN: That's so funny. Like why do we call, like if it comes from a girl, it's a nude. But from a guy, it’s a dick pic. Anway– 

[00:00:06] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: You know why? Because every other, every other part of their body is considered, um, okay and socially acceptable. 

[00:00:12]CRISTEN: Right, right. Exactly.

[UNLADYLIKE THEME SONG]

[00:00:15] CRISTEN: This is Unladylike. I'm Cristen, and I have a little story for y'all about my freshman year of high school, which was riddled with dick pics. I mean, I'm, I'm talking about like crudely drawn circle, circle, oval, pics of dicks. Doodle dicks, if you will, that the boys in my grade scrolled on seemingly every conceivable surface at school.

And I remember one guy in particular had to endure an entire school year with a, a one of these dicks drawn on every single page of his biology book. And y'all, that was a thick textbook! Where these guys found the time, I'll never know, and I frankly, I don't want to know.

And now obviously these are not the kinds of dick pics that I am gonna be talking about more this episode, but the fact of the matter is we do need to talk more about dick pics and teens–and clutch your pearls any parents listening–he tweens, too. Oh yeah. Yeah. 

I mean, sexting is just a normalized part of sexual and romantic relationships starting from a very young age. And I'm not saying this to freak anybody out. It's, it's simply the matter at hand. 

Like when I was in middle school and high school, the best I had was a dial-up modem and AOL instant messenger. And even with that alone, I managed to end up in conversations I did not wanna be having, and some that I certainly did but really didn't know how to have.

Like there was another guy in my grade, he and I had a clandestine game of AOL Instant Messenger Truth or Dare that he initiated. And of course they initiated cuz friends, I was a nerd. Nobody looked twice at me. And this guy was popular. Let's call him Bucky Woodruff.

And one of the dares he gave me one night that really stuck in my mind was this. He dared me to take off my top and smush my boobs onto the keyboard, I guess as a measure of how much boob there was to squish how many keys?

I, I, I don't know. I don't know. 

And I remember thinking, well, this is ridiculous. And I took a few beats as if I were actually, uh, taking my top off and just gingerly pressed my bare forearm down on the keyboard hit send, and, you know, really hoped for the best.

I also fully think that if I were in 10th grade today and Bucky Woodruff were, um, truth or daring me one, he would ask for a topless pic pretty soon and, there's a good chance one night I would send him something. I probably would have.

And he probably would've shown every single guy, not only in my grade but also in my high school. Because, yes, the technology since then has absolutely changed. But what really hasn't budged unfortunately, is the sexual double standard that so many adolescents and teenagers have to grapple with. 

For instance, consider the March, 2022 study titled What Do Peers Think About Sexting? Adolescents’ Views of the Norms Guiding Sexting Behavior. 

And it's important to note that this study is coming out of Sweden, which if we're talking about sex positivity, comprehensive sex education, like Sweden is, is gonna be one of the healthiest places in the world for that.

And even there, even there, the familiar refrain of a sexual double standard rings true. The study authors interviewed one 14-year-old girl who had sexting experience, who summed it up this way. 

“Most guys wouldn't be ashamed of sending a dick pic. That would be considered cool or manly. When a girl sends a nude, all the guys spread the picture around laughing at her. They call her a picture whore and think she's a slut. Girls are more victimized than boys and it's always the boy that pushes for it and wants her to undress more and more. But in the end, everyone thinks that it's her fault. Sure, you need to think for yourself, but it is extremely hard when the boy forces her to do things.”

 By and large, y'all, this 14-year-old girl, like she gets it.

She sees exactly what is going on, and the question of course becomes, well, what do we do about it? What do we tell her? How do we help girls, kids of all genders, who find themselves in these extremely hard scenarios where they know they're supposed to think for themselves and yet they send a nude?

On today's Ask Unladylike, I have two sex-ed related questions. And for the first, I 1000% needed to call up an expert.

[AUDIO STING]

[00:06:37] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: Hi, my name is Dr. Kat Dukes. I am a sex therapist, couples therapist, and regular psychotherapist. I'm also an educator and a professional trainer around the areas of sexuality, relationships, and gender.  And the reason that I do that is because I think it's so important that we do work around helping people feel more connected in their bodies and their sexuality and their relationships. Since there's so much damage done by our culture as we grow up.

[00:07:05] CRISTEN: Well, speaking of, let's dive right into this main advice question that we've got for you. 

So this is from a listener named Carrie, and I'm just gonna go ahead and read the email that she sent. So Carrie writes:

A friend of mine's daughter is in the fourth grade. She and her gal pal received their first dick pic from a boy in class. This boy requested pictures. In return, the school decided to deal with it by pulling them into the hallway to discuss that this was not okay and to tell an adult. They then failed to inform the parents that such things were happening at the school. Yikes. 

This led to our discussing how as a parent we would handle it. Do we go into these pictures will live forever on and be accessible to perverts who roam the world.

Fourth grade seems a little early to terrify them of the realities of how men view our bodies, but in reality, this is just the world we're living in. Innocence shattered in the fourth grade. I was expecting seventh, honestly. 

Actually, even as teenagers and adults, how do we handle this conversation? The pic is never wanted. It's like a drive-by sexual assault with a predator, asking how we liked it after the discovery. Blah. 

Words of wisdom?

[00:08:32] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: I love this question so much. The culture that our kids grow up in now with instant access to everything over phones is really not what we grew up with in any way. So it's a whole new environment for us. Right? 

 I heard that there was like fear on the parents' part around like scaring the kid. And so this is where the changes from former parents' generation to kids' generation now we actually have to tell them in advance that this stuff is out there. One of the first workshops I ever delivered at the national level is called Discussing Pornography with Youth. It's a whole other landscape, but when we do discuss things like sexting, dick pics, objectification, images living online forever and ever. It's so important that we approach it in a way that we are an askable and approachable parent. That we take our fear and as a, as a therapist and as a mom, I'm like emotionally self-regulate first. Like, take, that's, this is me taking, taking deep breaths, like think about what you're gonna say and then sit down and have a really slow, open conversation about this. Where it's not about fear, but we believe that as sex educators, we believe that information is helpful, not harmful, and you're gonna kind of lay it out, not as threats, but as like, oh, this is the tough landscape we're in right now. 

[00:09:50] CRISTEN: How do you even set the stage and get into the conversation without just sending, you know, all of the red flags going off in your child's head?

[00:10:03] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: So the average age of exposure to pornography these days is 11. 

[00:10:09] CRISTEN: Yeah. I'm not surprised. 

[00:10:10] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: As a sex educator, we say it's like it's never too early to start sex ed. Age zero talking about comfortably about body parts, and you can even start to reinforce consent. So setting up the conversation if you've got some years ahead of it, is to actually have those conversations first.

So you're not having this surprise conversation. You're setting up a lifetime of conversations instead of the big talk. So that way when you, you've got babies and toddlers, you're modeling consent and you're saying vulva and penis and things like that. 

When you're getting into toddler years, you're really talking about bodily autonomy and choices, and then when, when we're talking about 8, 9, 10, they already know about maybe sexual intercourse and some sexual behavior, and then you can layer on the more complex topics.

It's really, it can be tough if this is where you start, but let's say this is where you start. You sit down and, uh, one of the things parents talk to me about when they're in parent workshops with me as like, oh, you know, I'm just trying to wait. I'm gonna, I'm waiting till I get comfortable actually.

That'll never arrive. And so it's just like saying, um, I'm gonna wait to start playing the violin. I'm gonna wait until I'm good at it. Right? You actually need to get through the awkward part to get to where it's comfortable. And so what you can do when you sit down and you tell your young person like, hey, we really need to sit down and have a really important talk. You are not in trouble. This is a really important conversation and it makes me a little nervous, but it's really important, so I really wanna talk about it. 

I also tell parents that these conversations can be open note conversations. You don't have to memorize what you're gonna say, especially if you feel like you might get flustered, like have your talking points.

But with that conversation, you really want it to be a conversation, a dialogue, not a lecture, right? And so you wanna also set up maybe your notes or your thoughts. What are some open-ended questions I can ask to elicit my child to share? So, you know, so you might say, I really want to sit down and talk to you about what might seem like this really weird thing, which is, um, kids sending pictures of their private body parts to each other. What do you think about that, right?

And then they might say, oh, that sounds weird. Or like, oh, I, I have heard. And then you can validate like, oh, and how do you feel about that? Like, I don't know, it's weird. Why would people do that? You know? And, and then you can, then you can build on that. 

Another thing that you can use for these conversations that works really well is, um, you know, social media stories or TV shows or movies where you can put on a certain TV show or movie and then, listen, like, hey, how do you feel about that? So that's how you would set up the conversation. 

[00:13:03] CRISTEN: I like that approach, that extra layer, it sounds like, of transparency from the parent of like, you don't necessarily need to walk in with, you know, everything perfectly in your mind, and you can let your child know, like, hey, I feel weird about this too.

[00:13:20] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: Right, right. And that's, you know, based on our puritanical culture and repression, that we're not supposed to talk about this, right?

And so the more we teach our kids that, it's important to talk about and it's okay to talk about. Then they're gonna have also eventually less shame, and if they have less shame about their bodies and sexuality, they're actually able to access better information and make healthier decisions according to the research. And so, you know, then you might wanna lay out for your conversation what kind of language you're gonna use. 

If you haven't talked about penises and vulvas and anus and scrotums before, like it's gonna be like, oh, you know what? And I also think it's important that we try to use the medical terminology about this. You know, and again, it's okay if we feel nervous or awkward. We can still get through these conversations. 

I have boy-girl twins who are 11. So they've just entered middle school this year, and so there's more. I know, it's just, it's incredible. I've been doing parent workshops for 20 years, but my, my babies, you know, are now hitting middle school, and so now I've, I'm really applying my training my son, especially the way his other friends talk, he's bringing home different like words and concepts from school that we haven't really addressed.

We've always talked about like proper names of body. And things like that and um, like adult sexual touching that's appropriate for consenting adults. But he came to me the other day and he is like, mom, you know, these boys were saying, you know, this word, I'm not sure if it's a curse word.

And I was like, okay, what is it, babe? And he's like, c-u-m. And I was like, got it. And you know, it was, it was after school snack time. Now his sister likes to be very quiet, but she did not move during this conversation. She didn't go away. And I said, well, honestly, honey, that, you know, is a slang term for this. I was like, it's a verb and it's a noun, and this is what it can mean and everything. 

So, but even with all my training and my expertise, I was like–as I was putting cream cheese on the bagel–I was like, okay, uhhuh. I was like, okay, breathe. Take a deep breath. Open body posture, soft face, you know, like, and have this conversation.

And so we need to take our heads out of the sand and we need to, as parents know that this kind of education is critical, especially from a prevention standpoint, that information does not shatter in innocence. It's helpful, not harmful. Any sex ed can be age appropriate. A lot of sex ed needs to happen earlier than we think because kids' exposure to these issues is happening earlier.

[00:15:52] CRISTEN: You mentioned how movies and TV can be a helpful learning tool as well, and I was just wondering if you had any recommendations of particular shows or things like that, that you've, that you think are, um, you know, helpful models of, of this.?

[00:16:12] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: The key here is actually to look at the shows that your kids are already watching. Like try to sit down with them and then pick out the themes of relationships, of consent. Is there sexuality mentioned? Look at like outfits. Look at, look at gender roles. 

Now here's the key with that though. When you watch TV with your kids as a, as a vehicle to connection and communication and education, don't judge the media. Because if you sit down, you're like, oh, they do that terribly. Look how they don't even mention consent, blah, blah, blah. Look at those unhealthy relationships. You're not actually bridging communication with your kid at all. They now just feel judged for their media choices. You're actually closing communication.

So if you're gonna do this, you have to sit down in a way of going like, oh, wow. I thought that was interesting how the two characters negotiated that. What did you think about it? Do you think that was realistic? What would your friends think? How would you handle that? 

But don't judge the show or else it's breaking down the communication. 

[00:17:11] CRISTEN: I like it. It's almost like book club style. 

[00:17:15] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: Right? That open-ended questions are questions that can't elicit like a yes, no or fine, right? 

It's why at the end of the day, usually the kids and I, I'll ask em like, hey, what were the three best parts of your day? Because when I accidentally say like, how was your day? They're like, fine. What'd you learn? Nothing. Okay. 

But if I say, what are the three best parts of your day? I get, I also get a little bit more. 

[AD BREAK 1]

[00:17:39] CRISTEN: I'm curious if you hear more from parents about concern over their daughters

[00:17:45] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:46] CRISTEN: Than parents who are talking to maybe their sons about this?

[00:17:52] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: Absolutely. There's more concern about daughters. Right? And and that's, I think there's an interplay of two things there. One, it's, it's that puritanical culture about like girls being sexualized too early. And the uh, and the other one is also based on our knowledge that little girls are sexually assaulted much more often than little boys or men. And so I, it's the interplay of those two things. There's that worry and that fear, right?

About that victimization or that that harm. When I got that, um, the story from that woman's email, I heard that there's fear around like scaring the daughter, right? And that's where I think that having a tone of like, you know, this is important. This is tough. This is kind of a reality. This stuff is out there. 

Um, just setting a tone of like open conversation around tough things is really, really important. I also do think it's important without terrifying them to let them know that any digital images that are shared can end up on adult sites, any sites, and might be seen by friends and family.

And so it's so incredibly important that it makes sense why you’re interested, or it might seem kind of like fun or exciting to receive or send some things, or it might feel scary, but at the same time it's so important to not do that. There are some states where it still considers–even if a child, a teenager makes images of themself–it's still considered child pornography, even though it's not the spirit of the law, that it might be still the letter of the law, and that is really terrifying. There might be legal consequences, social consequences. Those images of you could end up on thousands of sites. 

[00:19:40] CRISTEN: Would you also advise parents of sons to give them kind of the dick pick talk in terms of like, hey, a lot of boys do this. It's now like a normative behavior almost. Like, is that, is that, something that can be factored in? 

[00:20:01] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: It truly needs to happen. I was having this conversation around, um, the language we use around prevention of assault, and in our culture we still use language around the victim preventing the assault. Being really careful knowing where you are managing your alcohol, and we don't as much talk about to the perpetrator about like how not to perpetrate, right? 

And so we're still leaving it disproportionately up to girls or survivors to prevent things like this. So we absolutely need to talk to boys about consent, about, you know, the pressure of images, about how sending an image to someone without consent and without being the legal age to send it, is actually a form of sexual harassment or assault. And it can really hurt people.

[00:20:51] CRISTEN: One thing that I've seen in research is that obviously, the majority of teenage girls at some point will be asked to send nudes. It's a lot of times, like it's not just someone asking once, they say no and then they drop it. A lot of times it is asking again and again and pressuring them and then ultimately, girls, sending nudes almost in a sense of desperation of like, well, let's just get this to stop. So how would you approach that aspect of, sort of of managing their expectations even around that kind of, really, coercion?

[00:21:38] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: It really is coercion and, and when, and if someone does quote unquote, like finally send a pic, then it's not consensual. It's like just trying to stop the behavior, right? Um, and so absolutely. When parents talk to kids about these things that can happen, I love the idea, and it's so critical to reinforce that it's not just a one thing and you say no, and ooh, now it's all over. Like, like, like an afterschool special, and then they were happily ever after.

But instead that to really acknowledge that what it looks like is this kind of repeated behavior. Pressure, pressure, pressure. And maybe they're pressuring like I'll tell people this thing about you or some kind of online or social bullying.

And so when we acknowledge that with kids, we can talk to them about what might this feel like? What might you say the first time? What if they ask you 10 more times? And this is the way we all learn best anyway. Um, we can actually role play with them and write out a script.

This can also be really funny because there are some great things online about really clever shutdown responses to these kinds of things, and we can go to the internet with our kid and look at some of those things. We can actually have them even talk it out. 

What would it be like if a friend of your said yes. After the 10th time, how could you then support them? What might happen? What might you do differently? 

So to really acknowledge that this is actually not an easy on or off switch, like just say no to drugs, just say no to dick pics and boob pics. That we actually have to acknowledge that this can feel like an ever increasing pressured situation. Um, as a therapist, you can also ask them, hey, is there another time where you felt pressured into something where you initially said no? And then eventually,and then we can draw on that experience and say like, you know, what would've helped you continue to say no at that time? What can we bring in when and if this happens eventually? Right?

[00:23:38] CRISTEN: What do you think though of the school's response to this situation that the um, listener wrote in about?

[00:23:47] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: It's really not okay. In this particular situation, the school did not inform the parents and left it up to the kids to inform a trusted adult at home. 

The school really needed to tell the parents for, for a whole host of reasons. One, the potential legal consequences. If it was reported or found out by the police, it actually could be, there could be legal consequences for any sharers. Sometimes, uh, if you download the photo, then you’re possessing child pornography or making it or sharing or distributing it. There's potential social consequences for any of the kids who made it or received it.There might be bullying or making fun of or shaming, and those kinds of things can lead to social isolation and depression. Or self-harm.

And so it was a real incredible oversight. And as a sexologist and a sex therapist, to me, I'm thinking, I'm seeing that as like, oh, there we are, putting our heads in the sand again about anything sexual.

[00:24:45] CRISTEN: When I really think about it, I don't know that I had access to someone I would've felt, at that age, would've qualified as a trusted adult. It's something I would've, you know, felt like I needed to manage myself cause I wouldn't wanna upset my parents.

What would would you advise then for younger listeners who don't feel safe enough to take it to an adult?

[00:25:18] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: Right. One thing that I believe is, has improved in the past 20 years is that young people can get support online. Problem is also online can be dangerous and online can be a place of great connection and support for younger listeners that do not have access to that kind of support, there are some great teen hotlines that offer that kind of support.

If kids are LGBTQ, if they're queer identified, there's the Trevor Project. If kids wanna go online to find great resources about sexuality and bullying, there's an incredible website called ScarlettTeen by Heather Karina. And you can go to plannedparenthood.org for great, uh, medically accurate information. And, um, for younger kids, there's an amazing site called amaze.org that has all kinds of things on sex and online and bullying for kids that are elementary school aged. 

So even things about sexting, there are wonderful videos about that so kids can find support that's really developmentally appropriate for them.

Um, another way, if they don't have a trusted adult at home, they might wanna try their own wellness center or school counselors,

[00:26:36] CRISTEN: Is there anything that I haven't, you or we haven't covered about just this whole umbrella of tweens, teens, sexting, and nudes that you wanna make sure that listeners know?

[00:26:52] DR. CATHERINE DUKES: You know, it's not gonna be sexy, but it's just a call to all the parents and caregivers out there. You know, it's never too late to start talking about this. If you don't start talking to kids until they are 10, 11, 12, they've already been exposed to misinformation. They always have a lot of assumptions. If they're not talking to you, then there might already be a culture of silence around it, even if it's awkward, even if you don't know where to start.

It is so incredibly important for parents to get maybe some education on how to talk to kids about sex, read some articles, and sit down and start that lifetime of conversations. Because I work with so many people now in sex therapy or who never had any conversation with their parents and carried a lifetime of misinformation and or shame because of that culture of silence, and information is what will help them. Arm them with the knowledge and the skills and the insights they need to make the healthiest decisions for themselves and their bodies. 

[00:27:56] CRISTEN: Thank you so much to Kat. Uh, y'all, I, I'm a little jealous of Kat's kids. After I talked to her, I, I just imagined what it would've been like to grow up with such a sex positive, perceptive parent. 

As they might say on RuPaul's Drag Race, she is mother. She is mother!

[AD BREAK 2]

[00:28:27] CRISTEN: Now I've got another question to share. And it was an education for me on sex education. I will go ahead and tell y'all now that the answer was not what I thought it was. 

So this letter comes from an unlady named Libby, and Libby writes: 

I'm a freshman in high school. 

Oh my gosh. Love it when the teens are listening. Uh, wow. That probably just made 10 teens unsubscribe.

At my high school, you're required to do a semester of health class. And in it, we never talked about birth control besides abstinence and never talked about reproductive health.

My middle school health class had talked more about it, so I emailed my health teacher–love it, Libby–and asked why hadn't we learned more about that and if there was a reason behind it? 

It took me forwarding it again after a month of him not responding and seeing me in the hallway and him ignoring me for him to finally write back. He said, quote, this is what we covered during the human growth and development unit. There are many different topics during the semester, and normally we really try to stay with the book, but we cannot cover every detail in the book. We also had guest speakers from the county health department give a talk about various topics related to sex, STIs and contraceptives, including birth control.

I should mention that the book in question is the Bible. Okay. That last sentence I just made up.

He shared the recording they had on the talk, and although yes, they talked about birth control, some it still seemed like they were pushing abstinence more than anything, and on top of that, they never talked about reproductive health, reproductive organs, or any of that.

I find it worrisome that I learned more during my all caps MIDDLE SCHOOL health class than my all caps HIGH SCHOOL health class.

I'm not sure what I should do. I think they should talk more about these things in health class, but is it a good idea and who is the next person I should even talk to in the administration food chain? 

Thank you so much for your help, and I think this podcast is hilarious and amazing. Exclamation point.

Libby, Libby. Libby. Libby, you are an unlady after my own heart. 

Now, like I said before I read Libby's letter, the exact answer was not what I thought it would be even generally speaking, because there are a lot of variables here that we don't know, like where is Libby's school? Is it public or private, et cetera, et cetera. So variables aside, my knee jerk answer to Libby before I started doing my due diligence research was, yes, of course, Libby, like comprehensive sex ed is always a good idea.

And my thought was that the next person she would talk to in the administration food chain would be like a guidance counselor, or even going straight to the principal. But in fact, if a student wants to get decent sex ed taught in their school, its administration food chain probably won't take them very far at all.

And at this point, engineer Ali, could you cue up the Magic School bus theme song, because we've gotta take a little journey to find out how sex ed actually does or doesn't get into the classroom.

The first stop is not actually a stop. We're just gonna do a drive by of Capitol Hill.

[00:32:38] CRISTEN: The federal government has no direct control over what is or isn't taught in sex ed, so, okay? Talking about food chains like Libby, you know, you, you can write to Joe Biden if you want to, but , oh, well he doesn't even like to say the word abortion, so he's probably not gonna be, be a helpful contact there.

There is no sex ed department at like the US Department of Education. No, no, no, no. Anything having to do with public school sex education, that is routed through the Department of Health and Human Services. That is who oversees federal funding for public sex ed programs.

But by and large sex ed–the curriculum and the teaching of it–is a state and local issue. 

So. Let's hightail it out of Washington DC and get to our respective state capitals cuz friends, guess what? Public sex education is determined not so much in schools by teachers. No, no. That would maybe make a little bit of sense. The ultimate power really rests with state governments because state governments control the purse strings.

They are the ones, for instance, who are distributing any of that federal funding from the US Department of Health and Human Services that they might get. They are the ones who are setting sex ed standards, guidelines, green lighting textbooks.

And who all does what will vary from state to state. But the governor, state legislators and your state board of education really hold the ultimate power here.

And in some states, state board of ed members are appointed by the governors, whereas in others, they are elected. I mean oh so, so many variables at play.

Now the next stop on our sex ed journey to the classroom is your local school board. The local school board is where a lot of advocacy happens since they're kind of the middle managers between public schools and state boards of education. Some school districts even have separate special committees just to oversee sex ed policies.

But it's important to remember local school boards only have as much influence over comprehensive sex ed as state policies allow.

And for the final stop in our sex ed field trip, of course we need to go to school. All right. Individual public schools can teach sex ed however they want, as long as it doesn't violate local and state law.

So if you are in a place like California where they're like, yay, comprehensive sex ed for everybody, like if that is your baseline you can't just teach abstinence. That would violate state law. But if you are in a place like Florida where nefarious politicians are passing laws like the Don't Say Gay bill and saying what you cannot teach, that's where things get so dangerous because they're not establishing a baseline, they're establishing a ceiling. They are mandating what cannot be taught.

So what is our Libby to do? What is our Libby to do? 

Now having taken my Ms. Frizzle sex ed field trip, my advice to Libby would be this. Step one, hop on Google and find out the sex education laws in your state. And I will have a link to the latest state by state breakdown in the show notes that you can find over at unladylike.co/episodes.

Step two, you need to find the folks who are already doing the work. You're gonna stay on Google and you are gonna search for Planned Parenthood student advocacy groups in your area. Or you can search your state and sex ed advocacy organizations. For instance, one here in Georgia that is doing the Lord's work is GCAP, Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential. They do a ton of work around comprehensive sex education and bridging that school community gap. And yes, it was founded by Jane Fonda herself, thank you very much. 

And if you really wanna take matters into your own hands, there may be opportunities to go to local school board meetings. 

And while I don't recommend wasting your time by writing to Joe Biden, contact your state representatives. Truly, because it's all about state law and isn't that kind of wild?

Libby, I just appreciate your enthusiasm. I appreciate your enthusiasm and your rage and your interest in doing something about it. It's probably not the most encouraging to hear like where, pack up your bag and head to the state capitol, ma'am. But the fact is, I think we need a civics course for understanding the machinations of public sex ed, yknow? 

Just think of me as a feminist, Ms. Frizzle in my, in my broken down school bus, driving into the belly of the beast that is the patriarchy and trying to make some sense of it.

[AUDIO STING]

[00:38:50] CRISTEN: Unladies, friends, parents, teachers, sex educators, I would love to hear any thoughts, concerns, questions that this episode has raised, and keep the questions coming. It doesn't even have to do with dick pics or sex ed.

Ask Unladylike is an open forum. Send me your questions. I would love to try to find some answers.

hello@unladylike.co is the email address, or you can DM me @unladylikemedia on Instagram. You can also follow Unladylike on Twitter @unladylikemedia and TikTok @unladylikemedia where I think I need to go whole hog on a sex ed campaign because the youth need to know some things that I didn't know when I was pressing my bare forearm down on a keyboard in the hopes that it would give the impression of, you know, a solid B cup squishing down.

And how did I almost forget to thank our fabulous sex educator and expert this episode, Dr. Katherine Dukes.

Go find and follow her. And I'll be sure to include links to the websites she recommended in this episode's source posts, which you can find over at unladylike.co/episodes,

Unladylike is a Starburns audio production, executive produced and hosted by me, Cristen Conger. Tara Brockwell is our senior producer, Katherine Caligori is our associate producer. Mixing and engineering is by Ali Nikou. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzen.

And til next week…

CRISTEN: Fun fact, Bucky Woodruff and I, we never even kissed. We never even kissed, and I showed him the top of my thong in chemistry class.

His loss.