Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education pp 115–135Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Faith, Progressive Sexuality Education, and Queer Secularism: Unsettling Associations

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

This chapter commences with a discussion of recent quantitative studies that point to the persistence of high birth rates among young people with strong religious affiliations regardless of whether young people live in states that have predominantly comprehensive or abstinence-based approaches to sexuality education. I then turn to Jesse Mills’ qualitative study of a comprehensive sexuality education program in San Diego, California, aimed at Somali young people that speaks to the entrenched ways in which notions of progressivism shape what can be achieved within the framing of a progressive approach. Two notions borrowed from Jasbir Puar “queer secularism” and “sexual exceptionalism” inform my analysis of progressive sexuality education in the final section. The work of Saba Mahmood, Janet Jakobsen, and Ann Pellegrini is also instructive in unpacking the project of progressive sexuality education.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Notes

  1. 1.

    The Guttmacher Institute is a not-for-profit think tank in the USA that prides itself on its use of evidence “to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights through an interrelated program of research, policy analysis and public education designed to generate new ideas, encourage enlightened public debate and promote sound policy and program development”. See http://www.guttmacher.org/about/index.html

  2. 2.

    I have no doubt that Ballard’s experience with this taxi driver in Newcastle would have been very disturbing and my intention is not to minimize the gravity of and significance of such acts of homophobia.

References

  • Allen, L. (2004). Beyond the birds and the bees: Constituting a discourse of erotics in sexuality education. Gender and Education, 16(2), 151–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allen, L. (2012). Pleasure’s perils? Critically reflecting on pleasure’s inclusion in sexuality education. Sexualities, 15(3–4), 455–471.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barnard, I. (2004). Queer race: Cultural interventions in the radical politics of queer theory. New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavazos-Rehg, P. A., Krauss, M. J., Spitznagel, E. L., Iguchi, M., Schootman, M., Cottler, L., & Bierut, L. J. (2012). Associations between sexuality education in schools and adolescent birth rates: A state-level longitudinal model. Archives of Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 166(2), 134–140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corngold, J. (2013). Moral puralism and sex education. Educational Theory, 63(5), 461–482.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fields, J. (2008). Risky lessons: Sex education and social inequality. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jagose, A. (2012). Orgasmology. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jakobsen, J. R., & Pellegrini, A. (2004). Love the sin: Sexual regulation and the limits of religious tolerance. Boston: Beacon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Landry, D. J., Lindberg, L. D., Gemmill, A., Boonstra, H., & Finer, L. B. (2011). Review of the role of faith- and community-based organizations in providing comprehensive sexuality education. American Journal of Sexuality Education, 6(1), 75–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lesko, N. (2010). Feeling abstinent? Feeling comprehensive? Touching the affects of sexuality curricula. Sex Education, 10(3), 281–297.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lottes, I. L. (2013). Sexual rights: Meanings, controversies, and sexual health promotion. The Journal of Sex Research, 50(3–4), 367–391.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton: Princeton University.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKay, A. (1999). Sexual ideology and schooling: Towards democratic sexuality education. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mills, J. (2012). I should get married early: Culturally appropriate comprehensive sex education and the cacialization of Somali masculinity. Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men, 1(1), 5–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moran, J. P. (2000). Teaching sex: The shaping of adolescence in the 20th century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moran, J. P. (2003). Sex education and the rise of the new right. Reviews in American History, 31(2), 283–289.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pellegrini, A. (2009). Feeling secular. Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, 19(2), 205–218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Puar, J. K. (2007). Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Puar, J. K. (2014). Reading religion back into terrorist assemblages: Author’s response. Culture and Religion, 15(2), 198–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rose, S. (2005). Going too far? Sex, sin and social policy. Social Forces, 84(2), 1207–1232.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scott, J. W. (2009, April 23). Sexularism. Ursula Hirschman annual lecture on gender and Europe: Florence, Italy.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stranger-Hall, K. F., & Hall, D. W. (2011). Abstinence-only education and teen pregnancy rates: Why we need comprehensive sex education in the U.S. PLoS One, 6(10), 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, C. (2007). A secular age. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. (2007). Religion in the public schools. Retrieved on July 1, 2014 from http://www.pewforum.org/files/2007/05/religion-public-schools.pdf

  • Tolman, D. L., & McClelland, S. I. (2011). Normative sexuality development in adolescence: A decade in review, 2000–2009. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21(1), 242–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitehead, D. (2005). In pursuit of pleasure: Health education as a means of facilitating the “health journey” of young people. Health Education, 105(3), 213–227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang, Z., & Gaydos, L. M. (2010). Reasons for and challenges of recent increases in teen birth rates: A study of family planning service policies and demographic changes at the state level. Journal of Adolescent Health, 46(6), 517–524.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

This chapter also appears in Mary Lou Rasmussen’s (2016) Progressive Sexuality Education: The Conceits of Secularism. New York, NY: Routledge.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sociology, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Mary Lou Rasmussen

Authors
  1. Mary Lou Rasmussen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Louisa Allen

  2. School of Sociology Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Mary Lou Rasmussen

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Rasmussen, M.L. (2017). Faith, Progressive Sexuality Education, and Queer Secularism: Unsettling Associations. In: Allen, L., Rasmussen, M.L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sexuality Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_6

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-40032-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-40033-8

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation