3/25/2023 0 Comments Funny words for sex![]() ![]() One character has a Muslim mom who wears a headscarf another has two dads. The kids who populate Sex Is a Funny Word have blue skin and red hair, dreadlocks and buzz cuts. Smyth’s color-rich drawings also drive home the all-inclusive message. ![]() And everyone has times when they change their mind.” “Everyone has times when they want to be touched and other times when they do not want to be touched. “One way to show respect and build trust is to ask before you touch someone,” he writes. While universities and even some high schools wrestle with how to convey that “yes means yes,” Silverberg once again distills a complicated idea - affirmative consent - into terms a grade-schooler can understand. And like all the chapters, this one ends with questions: “What do you think about the words boy and girl? Do you know anyone for whom those words don’t fit?”Įqually powerful are the book’s discussions of touch, which cover “magic touch” (the kind that “can make a hard day a bit easier”), touching yourself (“masturbation is when we touch ourselves, usually our middle parts, to get that warm and tingly feeling”), and “secret touching” by people who “know what they are doing is wrong.” “The one who knows most about who you are is you.Try to enjoy your body, no matter what it’s called,” his kid characters conclude. In two simple sentences, he’s loosened the knot of biology and gender expression, opening the door to the next section, which invites readers to think about what they’re called (“girl” or “boy”), how they feel and how they want to be treated. Having a vulva isn’t what makes you a girl.” He goes on: “Having a penis isn’t what makes you a boy. In Silverberg’s exuberantly non-binary world, most bodies have nipples, some bodies have breasts, every body has a bottom and some bodies have a penis. because any part of your body can be private”) just highlights the limiting language of most sex ed books (and most of what passes for sexuality education in this country). ![]() His purposeful terminology (“grown-ups,” not “men and women” “middle parts,” not “private parts. Sex is something people can do to feel good in their bodies. That groundbreaking outlook is evident from the first pages, when Silverberg defines sex three different ways: “Sex is a word used to describe our bodies (like male, female and the rest of us). Inclusivity is the foundation of this book instead of consigning LGBT issues to a separate section, Silverberg presumes that all of us find ourselves somewhere on a spectrum of gender identity, an inner sense that may or may not match our biological parts and the gender assigned to us at birth. “Justice means that every person and every body matters.”Ĭould we have that etched over every middle-school entry door, please? And while the chisel’s still warm, put it on the nation’s courtrooms, too. “Justice is like fairness, only bigger,” Silverberg explains. Which is why the story begins not with body parts but with values: Respect. The same is true of this sequel Silverberg notes in his introduction that the book is not meant to deliver the “so-called facts of life,” but instead to help younger and older readers explore the feelings and beliefs wrapped up in sexuality. With Keith Haring-esque illustrations and a cast of kid characters who are alternately fascinated, curious, disinterested, or weirded out by the facts of reproduction, that book makes clear that babies begin in various ways (egg and sperm required turkey baster or surrogate optional), with or without help (fertility doctor adoption agency), but always with people who are waiting eagerly for them.Įach section of What Makes a Baby ends with questions (“Who was happy that it was YOU who grew?”) It’s meant to stoke conversation, not to provide answers. Silverberg and Smyth’s first book, What Makes a Baby, tells the story of reproduction in a toddler-friendly, open-ended way. But I’d like to see it on the required reading list for high school freshmen, college resident advisors, military personnel, early-childhood educators, coaches, clergy, police officers, pediatricians and parents. The first trans-inclusive sex ed book for kids has sections on “privacy and private parts,” “what we call ourselves,” “touching yourself,” “crushes” and “love.” But this jauntily illustrated book by Canadian sexuality educator Cory Silverberg and artist Fiona Smyth is noteworthy for what it embraces, not what it excludes.
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