Speaker 1: Congratulations, you've been accepted into the inaugural class of Therapy
Speaker 1: for Black Girls University. Whether you're packing for a new
Speaker 1: year on campus, thinking through your gap year, enrolling in
Speaker 1: a community college, or grabbing your souls for graduation, Embarking
Speaker 1: on the next chapter of your life is often exciting
Speaker 1: but also a little scary. There can be a lot
Speaker 1: of unknowns that can leave you feeling uncertain, and having
Speaker 1: the right support can help you to feel confident and grounded.
Speaker 1: TBGU was designed to help strengthen your voice, sharpen your knowledge,
Speaker 1: and affirm who you are and who you'll become. Our
Speaker 1: goal is to create relevant and accessible resources, content, and
Speaker 1: experiences to help you thrive at this stage of your
Speaker 1: life and beyond.
Speaker 2: More from our conversation after the break.
Speaker 1: If you thought we were reserving the Sex Positive September
Speaker 1: celebrations for our Big Sister brand, you thought wrong. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Sex Positive September TBGU style. My name is Jana
Speaker 1: Ellis and I'm the TBG University Coordinator. You may remember
Speaker 1: my voice from a previous TBGU episode, The Growing Pains
Speaker 1: of Graduation. Doctor Joy has so kindly passed me the
Speaker 1: mic to begin leading the TBGU series as your new
Speaker 1: host and because we wanted to return with a bang.
Speaker 1: In today's episode, we're talking all things sex in College.
Speaker 1: Joining me today is sexual health education enthusiast doctor Daniella Thorne.
Speaker 1: She has over twelve years of experience in sex education, research,
Speaker 1: curriculum writing, direct service training, design, development and facilitation. Doctor
Speaker 1: Thorn holds both a master's and doctoral degree in public
Speaker 1: health and has dedicated her career to supporting the advancement
Speaker 1: and institutionalization of inclusive, evidence informed, and comprehensive sexual health
Speaker 1: education and school districts across the country. In our conversation today,
Speaker 1: we break down what's missing from gen z's current discourse
Speaker 1: around sex, what it means to practice sex positivity versus
Speaker 1: sex negativity, and shed light on how friends and family
Speaker 1: can support college students they suspect of suffering from sexual
Speaker 1: abuse or harassment. Here's our conversation. Very excited to chat
Speaker 1: with you, doctor Thorne.
Speaker 3: Awesome, Thank you, Good morning. I'm so happy to be
Speaker 3: here with you all.
Speaker 1: Yes, good morning. So you are a sexual health expert
Speaker 1: who has worked closely with youth and developing culturally competent
Speaker 1: sex education curricula, to start, can you tell our audience
Speaker 1: what degrees you have, what do you have them in,
Speaker 1: and how all these degrees have informed your work.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I'm so happy you act. So I went
Speaker 3: to school a lot, right, So I have a bachelor's
Speaker 3: in human biology Bachelor's of Science from the University at
Speaker 3: Albany in upstate New York. I also have a master's
Speaker 3: in public health with a concentration in health policy and management,
Speaker 3: also from the University at Albany. And then lastly, the
Speaker 3: spirit moved me to get a doctoral degree from Georgia
Speaker 3: Southern University. I have a Doctor of Public Health with
Speaker 3: a focus in community health and education. So that is
Speaker 3: a little bit of my educational history.
Speaker 1: Lovely, Well, can you walk us through what inspired you
Speaker 1: to work with youth and sexual health advocacy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question. I was always interested in team pregnancy prevention.
Speaker 3: And then after I got my master's degree, someone have
Speaker 3: reached to me to be a long term sub for
Speaker 3: biology at a charter school. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: make a little extra coin during the master's program the
Speaker 3: girls meet the coin, and so I did that one mornings,
Speaker 3: maybe for like two or three periods, and I really
Speaker 3: enjoyed it. My mom is an educator, she's a retired
Speaker 3: educator in New York City school. So I always had
Speaker 3: an aversion to education in regards to teaching in the
Speaker 3: traditional sense, but I enjoyed bio kinda. But I noticed
Speaker 3: that the young girls, who were predominantly black and brown
Speaker 3: girls right from Auburney, New York, they always had questions
Speaker 3: about their bodies. And at the time, I was in
Speaker 3: my early twenties. So they told me as like big cousin,
Speaker 3: who happens to be the bioteacher. And so once I
Speaker 3: completed my master's program, I had asked the principle if
Speaker 3: I could teach a public health course, and she really
Speaker 3: gave me the true autonomy to develop the course and
Speaker 3: pilot it, and so I was able to really embed
Speaker 3: a lot of the answers that the youth were asking
Speaker 3: me into the course outline. And I fell in love
Speaker 3: with sexual reproductive health. Like I was like, oh girl,
Speaker 3: you do not out your regina. Let's talk about anatomy, right,
Speaker 3: Let's talk about hygiene. Let's talk about all the things
Speaker 3: that they used to come up and just talk to
Speaker 3: me about their partners and how do they navigate safe
Speaker 3: sex practices, and so I was able to embed that
Speaker 3: in my classroom and also bring in culturally competent things
Speaker 3: that can land with my girls. Right, So we're dissecting
Speaker 3: hip hop songs that I know that they're listening to,
Speaker 3: and we're talking about how does misogyny show up, right,
Speaker 3: and where do we get these ideas? Oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: at the time, thought had become a thing. I don't
Speaker 3: know if you ever know that word. I might be
Speaker 3: aging myself now, but I didn't even know what that
Speaker 3: word meant. And so just talking about like, what does
Speaker 3: that even mean? How do we determine whether someone is that?
Speaker 3: And just really unpacking those things. And so that's truly
Speaker 3: where I fell in love with education, sexual reproductive health
Speaker 3: education with young people, particularly my black brown girls. And
Speaker 3: then I got to a place of like, I don't
Speaker 3: want to do this for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3: So how do I position myself to be in spaces
Speaker 3: and to be in rooms in which we're talking sexide
Speaker 3: curricula for people that look like me? Right, because we
Speaker 3: cannot continue to take the cookie cutter approach and not
Speaker 3: have the conversations. Now, in hindsight, I didn't have to
Speaker 3: go get a doctorate for all of that and the
Speaker 3: Cruity student loans. But I decided to do that, and
Speaker 3: I'm grateful for what I did because now it's something
Speaker 3: one you can't take away from me into when I'm
Speaker 3: having the conversations, I have the theory to really back
Speaker 3: the things that I'm saying, and it positions me to
Speaker 3: then now train educators who are going to go into
Speaker 3: classrooms in ways that they can be more inclusive, be
Speaker 3: more values neutrals when they're getting ready to teach sex
Speaker 3: at how health education to the young people. So that's
Speaker 3: a little bit of my trajectory and how I fell
Speaker 3: into sexual reductive health for young people.
Speaker 1: I love that. I adore that, and I think it's
Speaker 1: so important to have the teachers or the professors that
Speaker 1: are like cool with you enough to have those conversations
Speaker 1: and to open you up to questions you didn't know
Speaker 1: you had. So I love that in your dissertation you
Speaker 1: talked and you exe adolescent perspectives on sexual health education
Speaker 1: curricula within the respective Georgia schools. Can you briefly talk
Speaker 1: with us through your study and share some key insights
Speaker 1: that you've gathered from that research.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so part of the doctor process for me was
Speaker 3: to complete a dissertation. And a dissertation is essentially a
Speaker 3: novel study in which you look up a thing. It
Speaker 3: should be based in theory and no one has ever
Speaker 3: explored it before. Right, That's essentially what it's today. You
Speaker 3: write a really long book to like defend the things
Speaker 3: that you explored. So I knew I wanted to work
Speaker 3: with young people. What I didn't consider was that I
Speaker 3: went to school in a very, very rural town in Georgia.
Speaker 3: Like talk about trusting the Lord. I never visited this school.
Speaker 3: I saw that they had a focus in community health education.
Speaker 3: I was like, yep, this sounds good. This curriculum makes sense.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna apply. They let me in, gave me a fellowship.
Speaker 3: I moved to Statesboro, Georgia, and I'm talking about cotton
Speaker 3: feels on the side. Thankfully they had a Walmart, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, girl's supposed to be here for three years.
Speaker 3: This was the stupidest decision I had ever made, but
Speaker 3: I quit my job. I'm here now. And so I
Speaker 3: went into this very rural Bible Belt city saying, hey, y'all,
Speaker 3: I'm the girl from Brooklyn who wants to study sexual
Speaker 3: reproductive health. And these are in spaces where the health
Speaker 3: pe teacher also happens to be the deacon of the
Speaker 3: whatever church is local, right, And so I remember my
Speaker 3: dissertation chair saying, you sure you're going to get this
Speaker 3: research done here, and I'm like, well, baby, that's what
Speaker 3: I came for. So I was able to do four
Speaker 3: focused groups with young people ages fourteen to eighteen to
Speaker 3: really explore their perception of facilitators and barriers to accessing
Speaker 3: sexual reproductive health education in their schools, and then also
Speaker 3: their perception of what are the positives of getting sex
Speaker 3: set in schools, what are the possible negatives. At the
Speaker 3: time the area that my cohort came from, they were
Speaker 3: still getting abstinence only sex ad honey, and like it
Speaker 3: is twenty and fifty, Like come on, and so they're
Speaker 3: still doing abstinence only And I just was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: we know how teachers feel. There's a lot of research
Speaker 3: on how parents feel. There's a lot of research about
Speaker 3: administrators communities, but like, y'all talk to the kids. You
Speaker 3: never have anybody talk to the kids. And so it
Speaker 3: was so awesome to have a conversation with the young people,
Speaker 3: just candid conversations focus groups really to get rich data
Speaker 3: about what their desires were, and many of them had
Speaker 3: same concerns. So they found that their barriers were oftentimes educators.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Teachers are uncomfortable talking to young people about sex, which
Speaker 3: makes the young people feel uncomfortable to ask questions. They
Speaker 3: found that parents can sometimes be advocates for sex said,
Speaker 3: but they also can be hinderanced. Right, I don't want
Speaker 3: my child, My baby don't need to learn about that.
Speaker 3: My baby won't ever, and that's usually the baby that
Speaker 3: is ever right. And also, just like administrators, they found
Speaker 3: that community members have to really advocate and we see
Speaker 3: that now all these years later. If the community and
Speaker 3: the parents are advocating for some level of comprehensive sex
Speaker 3: education in the school systems, usually the school districts have
Speaker 3: to meet that need. So it was really dope to
Speaker 3: be able to get that information from the young people,
Speaker 3: talk to the young people, and thankfully enough that particular
Speaker 3: district ended up adopting a more inclusive sex at curriculum.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say because of my dissertation work, there was
Speaker 3: already community like advocacy happening on the ground roots around
Speaker 3: changing the curriculum, and so my dissertation happened at like
Speaker 3: a pivotal time where I was like, oh, I got
Speaker 3: to collect this data before they change everything, which is
Speaker 3: like a great thing, but also I got to get
Speaker 3: up out of here, right, And so that was what
Speaker 3: my research was around. I love that.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: So can you explain or dive into what does inclusive
Speaker 1: sex ed look like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so inclusive sex ed, comprehensive sex ed looks like
Speaker 3: age and stage appropriate information for young people and that
Speaker 3: means a lot of things. So that means at kindergarten,
Speaker 3: we are talking to our young people about boundaries, right,
Speaker 3: what does a good boundary look like? If so, this
Speaker 3: is your circle of space. If someone doesn't want to
Speaker 3: be in your circle of space, you got to check it.
Speaker 3: Can I give you a hug? May I borrow your pencil?
Speaker 3: Can I borrow your blanket? For nap time? That's in
Speaker 3: the elementary level or even kindergarten, and then it goes
Speaker 3: all the way through the life course and so conference
Speaker 3: and sex education. We're not teaching kindergarteners about safe sex practices, right,
Speaker 3: We're saving that for later years because we want to
Speaker 3: make sure it's agent stage appropriate. But exploring your sexuality
Speaker 3: and human growth and development is literally a part of
Speaker 3: the human experience. And so we're not going to wait
Speaker 3: till high school to talk about puberty when many of
Speaker 3: our young people are experiencing changes to their body physically, emotionally, mentally,
Speaker 3: perhaps in late elementary fifth grade, and so it's having
Speaker 3: conversations around basic anatomy, safe sex practices, boundaries, decision making,
Speaker 3: refusal skills. I think people oftentimes they're just like, say
Speaker 3: no to sex, say no to drugs. But what do
Speaker 3: you do when you actually want to have sex with
Speaker 3: your partner? How do you say no when you actually
Speaker 3: do have the desire, Right, it's easier to say no
Speaker 3: the stranger, but if you're a partnered then you want
Speaker 3: to express your love in that way. How do you
Speaker 3: do that? How do you negotiate common usage, How do
Speaker 3: you have conversations around decision making with your partner? Right?
Speaker 3: How do you explore pregnancy options? And of course these
Speaker 3: are topics that will come up later on, perhaps in
Speaker 3: high school, but it's really across the life course. Our
Speaker 3: bodies are consistently changing. For that fourth grade person who
Speaker 3: might be developing breast tissue. Do they even know what
Speaker 3: breast tissue is? When they get their cycles? Do they
Speaker 3: know how to change your sanitary products? If no one
Speaker 3: has ever told them that, Hey, there's going to come
Speaker 3: a point where you're going to start and now you're like,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, I'm dying a little bit. There's blood
Speaker 3: coming from parts of my body that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: So it's just teaching people about their bodies and really
Speaker 3: normalizing that it is a part of the life. Of course,
Speaker 3: that your body is going to continue to change. Jes
Speaker 3: desires are normal. And also exploring gender identity, sexual orientation,
Speaker 3: all those things, all all of it put a nice
Speaker 3: bow on it. Those are topics that show up in
Speaker 3: inclusive sex education. I love that.
Speaker 1: So we talked about like what does inclusive sex ed
Speaker 1: look like? But what does exploring it look like? What
Speaker 1: does exploring your sexuality look like?
Speaker 3: Okay, I think exploring your sexuality looks like what does
Speaker 3: pleasure look like to you?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: So exploring your sexuality is what feels good to me?
Speaker 3: When do I feel the most sexiest, what do I
Speaker 3: feel the most confident? Who are the people that I'm
Speaker 3: enjoying sharing intimate space? With right. What clothes make me feel?
Speaker 3: You know, there's a cere materary. You know, for some
Speaker 3: it might be some satin pajamas that you just put
Speaker 3: it on. You're like, wow, I'm given today? And so
Speaker 3: what does pleasure look like to you? And pleasure isn't
Speaker 3: always physical intercourse? Pleasure can be just feeling good and
Speaker 3: confident about yourself. What are the things that make you
Speaker 3: feel the most confident, that bring you joy? And also
Speaker 3: exploring sexualities to me is whom are you attracted to?
Speaker 3: Perhaps what type of sex do you enjoy to have?
Speaker 3: And then I would say unlearning some of the biases
Speaker 3: that you may have been taught around sexuality, whether we
Speaker 3: realize it or not. Our upbringing, there are so many
Speaker 3: values that are embedded in us, from our homes where
Speaker 3: we're rare, the communities in which we grow up, in
Speaker 3: the music that we listen to. I grew up with
Speaker 3: a mom who loved those I'm talking about Arry White,
Speaker 3: Lutha Vangels. I will send you a Luther Vanders going down. Okay?
Speaker 3: That music also embeds little things and values about sex
Speaker 3: and sexuality, and so exploring what those biases are. Do
Speaker 3: you hold these values or were these values superimposed on you?
Speaker 3: All of that is exploration, and I think it's constant.
Speaker 3: I'm a thirty five year old woman who even now,
Speaker 3: I'm like, huh, do I have that because I have
Speaker 3: that opinion? Or is it because I grew up in
Speaker 3: a Caribbean household and like I just had no other
Speaker 3: choice but to have that opinion. So I would say
Speaker 3: learning exploring, but also for some it is unlearning.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm curious to know what is sex positivity? Can
Speaker 1: you elaborate on what that looks like? I am so
Speaker 1: excited for this answer. For me, I am new to
Speaker 1: sex positivity and so wanting to just learn, Like what
Speaker 1: does that mean?
Speaker 3: The terms are forever changing. To me, sex positivity is
Speaker 3: like really showing up as your most authentic, having the
Speaker 3: most agency about your sexual decision making. And I would
Speaker 3: say consensual sexual decision making really free of like bias
Speaker 3: or judgment, right, Like, this is who I am, This
Speaker 3: is what makes me feel good. These are the sexual
Speaker 3: decisions that I make. I am communicating my desires to
Speaker 3: my partners. I am exploring fantasies. I am advocating for
Speaker 3: myself and my sexual health. Perhaps when I'm with my clinician, like,
Speaker 3: I am just walking in my most authentic sexual being self.
Speaker 3: If I want to wear my sat in pajamas to
Speaker 3: sleep because it's gonna make me feel good, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do those things. I think it's like having true autonomy
Speaker 3: and agency around your sexual decision. And to me, that's
Speaker 3: what sex positivity is. And you know, some people choose
Speaker 3: to share those things out broadly and others shoes not
Speaker 3: to you. So to me, that's what it is to
Speaker 3: be sex positive, really walking in your desires and feeling
Speaker 3: confident and comfortable in your decision making around sex and sexuality.
Speaker 3: A lot of the things that folks would say would
Speaker 3: be sex positive, right, would be like, that's not lady
Speaker 3: like now, people don't need to know you know now,
Speaker 3: don't share that too much. You keep that for marriage, right,
Speaker 3: And then you get into purity culture and all those things.
Speaker 3: So it's a really interesting concept to kind of wrap
Speaker 3: your mind around.
Speaker 1: But what do you think is missing from gen Z's
Speaker 1: current discourse around sex positivity on social media?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I think what is so amazing about
Speaker 3: gen Z is that there's a level of confidence and
Speaker 3: like sex positivity. For sure, they walk in their purpose.
Speaker 3: They obviously naturally have access to way more information than
Speaker 3: I could even fathom having at that time. But I
Speaker 3: just think that because of social media, there is just
Speaker 3: so much perpetuation of misinformation, and so there is this
Speaker 3: like sometimes I would say misinformation or disinformation. Sometimes it's intentional,
Speaker 3: other times I just think that it's like this is
Speaker 3: literally not true. But if you can get viral enough
Speaker 3: and get enough people to follow you on TikTok or
Speaker 3: you get that SoundBite that goes to the shade room,
Speaker 3: now people will be googling the thing that was literally
Speaker 3: not true. And so it's like, what's missing to me
Speaker 3: is just this fact based information Because as much as
Speaker 3: gen Z is out here doing amazing things, gen Z
Speaker 3: is also a generation that didn't necessarily have access to
Speaker 3: conference with sex at at least school based conference with
Speaker 3: sex at right, And so you theory, you ask Google,
Speaker 3: you talk to Alexa to get some information that you
Speaker 3: may not have, and there could just be this crazy
Speaker 3: perpetuation of false information. And I think that's what's missing, Like,
Speaker 3: how do you go back to the fact to ensure
Speaker 3: that the things that you're saying are indeed correct? Right?
Speaker 3: Catching an see sitting on a toilet seed, You're not
Speaker 3: going to get that. But I guarantee you if a
Speaker 3: celebrity or someone who has a following accidentally says something
Speaker 3: like that, there is someone who is not going to
Speaker 3: do the fact checking. Now the world thinks that this
Speaker 3: is the truth, right, and now we've lost everyone because
Speaker 3: now for this forty eight hours on Instagram, there are
Speaker 3: gonna be people who walk away feeling like this falsehood
Speaker 3: is true. And I think that's what's missing the fact checking.
Speaker 1: Can you list and debunk some of the common misconceptions
Speaker 1: that you're speaking about.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh, such a good question. I would say, literally,
Speaker 3: how do people potentially expose themselves to sexually transmit the FF?
Speaker 3: I think we saw this even with COVID or monkey
Speaker 3: popster Like people just really lack basic understanding. Granted I
Speaker 3: have several public health degrees, but like basic understanding of
Speaker 3: how things are transmitted to person to person. I think
Speaker 3: that there is a lack of information on particularly backsterial infections.
Speaker 3: So if you get community at once, you can't get
Speaker 3: in here, and you can unless you complete t your antibiotics.
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of information missing there, Like
Speaker 3: there's a lot of information missing around basic anatomy. I
Speaker 3: follow those page on Instagram and they go around and
Speaker 3: they ask male presenting people questions around female anatomy, like
Speaker 3: what is the different sizes of tampon stand for? And
Speaker 3: some of their responses, I'm like, not in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three are y'all saying it's the size of the vagina.
Speaker 3: So I think there also is just a basic misunderstanding
Speaker 3: of anatomy. The conversation about like permiscuity and just number
Speaker 3: of people you've had sex with. Is that an indicator
Speaker 3: of your sexual reproductive health status and wellness? No? So
Speaker 3: I just think there's so many myths that just need
Speaker 3: to be debunked.
Speaker 1: I think that is amazing, and I want to get
Speaker 1: a bit negative. So can you describe what is sex negativity?
Speaker 1: Like what does it mean to be sex negative? How
Speaker 1: does that show up in our daily lives? Can you
Speaker 1: describe what that looks like for the everyday person, because
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's more common than what we're thinking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think any common statement that is based in misogyny,
Speaker 3: purity culture, the patriarchy, anything that has to do with
Speaker 3: like the sexist like women should this right, men can
Speaker 3: do this, but girls should do this. If they do that,
Speaker 3: then they are this. I think all of that is
Speaker 3: sex negative. Anything that does not concern you in your body,
Speaker 3: in your part, that you have to say about someone
Speaker 3: else's decision making is negative. Any stereotypes that are perpetuated
Speaker 3: around a person, their body, their jenneral identity, their sexual
Speaker 3: orientation is sex negative. Because the whole idea about sex
Speaker 3: positivity is like free of shame, right, Like you are
Speaker 3: who you are, and you make your sexual reductive health
Speaker 3: decisions unashamed, very clearly, and you're making these decisions for you,
Speaker 3: yourself and perhaps your partner. I think anything that is
Speaker 3: sex negative is not mine of your business drinking your
Speaker 3: water and minding other people's private parts, right, because what
Speaker 3: someone does is especially if I'm not being intimate with them,
Speaker 3: it's literally none of my business. However, a lot of
Speaker 3: the music that we listen to right is based in
Speaker 3: sex negativity. If you just think about the discourse that
Speaker 3: we see on social media around sex, it's so based
Speaker 3: in purity culture, like I'm not marrying a person that
Speaker 3: has had X or this, Like it is so deeply ingrained.
Speaker 3: And that's why when we were talking about exploring one
Speaker 3: sexuality or even sex positivity. I was saying, some of
Speaker 3: it is unlearning because I think in general, a lot
Speaker 3: of the rhetoric that we are taught, and I also
Speaker 3: speak specifically for me being Caribbean and being Christian, it
Speaker 3: is based in a culture that probably a white man outlined,
Speaker 3: and we have just been listening to it for our
Speaker 3: entire lives. And so we believe that women should be
Speaker 3: this and men should be that, and men definitely have
Speaker 3: the ability to explore their sexuality and sow their royal Oh,
Speaker 3: but a woman should just be deep and allow a
Speaker 3: man to please them. I was listening to this podcast
Speaker 3: a couple months ago, and I move my mind and
Speaker 3: the question was when the sex end? And I just
Speaker 3: think about, like the movies, the TV show sex ends
Speaker 3: when the man climaxes, the man climaxes, and then sex
Speaker 3: is over. And I'm like, what do you do? What
Speaker 3: a concept? But that's what's perpetuated in the media, right
Speaker 3: like this male present, a person climaxes and now the
Speaker 3: experience is over. And so if you just think about
Speaker 3: deeply all the message that we are taught around stereotypes
Speaker 3: about men and women, et cetera. Who a lot of
Speaker 3: it is sex negative and most of the burden to
Speaker 3: be sexually I would say oppressed is all the women.
Speaker 2: More from our conversation after the break.
Speaker 1: So amongst our group chats, in our dorm rooms, in
Speaker 1: our friend groups, we've heard this term body count and
Speaker 1: discuss it's importance or lack thereof. What are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on some of the discourse surrounding the amount of people
Speaker 1: someone has had sex with.
Speaker 3: My thoughts is, like, y'all really be bored. There is
Speaker 3: no way we are still talking about like throw out
Speaker 3: the window. It is such an antiquated conversation, and I
Speaker 3: find the people who are perpetuating this conversation are film misinformed,
Speaker 3: because the real questions that you need to be asking
Speaker 3: someone is when's the last time you've had a comprehensive
Speaker 3: sexual reproductive health analysis a blood panel where we're exploring
Speaker 3: your possibility of viral bacterial parazoa, Like, when's the last
Speaker 3: time you've been tested for real? For real, don't just
Speaker 3: tell me they just swapped you clmenty and gonnerhea, because
Speaker 3: there's a lot of stuff out there other than that. Right,
Speaker 3: that's the conversation a person can have one sexual partner,
Speaker 3: no sexual partner, one hundred and fifty sexual partners, that
Speaker 3: still is not an indicator of their health status. I
Speaker 3: think the conversation is pregnancy options. If we are having sex,
Speaker 3: if we're having vaginal unprotected sex or even protected sex,
Speaker 3: there's a possibility of pregnancy. Let's have a conversation about
Speaker 3: what are our thoughts about if we potentially have an
Speaker 3: unintended pregnancy. What are your safe sex practices? That's the
Speaker 3: question for me to ask, Right, are you on some
Speaker 3: form of hormonal birth controls? Do you use condoms?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: What are we the number of people what? I just
Speaker 3: think it's a very old conversation, again still based in misogyny,
Speaker 3: because I don't think that women are asking men these questions.
Speaker 3: Anytime that I've seen it come up, it is or mom,
Speaker 3: when we got to only have X, Y and Z,
Speaker 3: I'm not marrying nobody to have more than X, Y
Speaker 3: and Z, and like also too, where are these numbers
Speaker 3: coming from? You know? But at the same time, if
Speaker 3: you have the perceptions could be if you have x
Speaker 3: amount of partners on the higher spectrum of whatever this
Speaker 3: spectrum is, that is just problematic. Does that mean that
Speaker 3: you have more experience. It's just problematic and the conversation
Speaker 3: has been very long standing. I do not think it's
Speaker 3: going anywhere. And I think it's because this expectation of
Speaker 3: like purity culture.
Speaker 1: I know, for me, it was always like ten fingers,
Speaker 1: keep it on, ten fingers, and so I brought that
Speaker 1: into college.
Speaker 3: That was my mindset.
Speaker 1: I was like, as long as I have ten I
Speaker 1: could count on ten finkers. And so going back to
Speaker 1: your point of purity culture and just all of that,
Speaker 1: it's deeply embedded. And like, I don't believe it's going
Speaker 1: anywhere either. I think it's an evergreen conversation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is so evergreen. And I've heard the ten
Speaker 3: fingers thing too. Oh if it's one and ten fingers,
Speaker 3: and they're like, oh, that's too much, right, Like do you
Speaker 3: not want a partner who knows about their body and
Speaker 3: knows how to communicate what their desires are? Because if
Speaker 3: this person doesn't know how to communicate their desires or
Speaker 3: is not able to please you, are you going to
Speaker 3: seek the pleasure of somewhere else. It's just so and
Speaker 3: so you still hear it now, right, I would assume
Speaker 3: that people still bring it up So, Jana, where did
Speaker 3: you learn this ten finger rule for the number of
Speaker 3: sexual partners you should have in a lifetime?
Speaker 1: That was passed on from one of my aunties, and
Speaker 1: that was passed on from her mother. So I remember
Speaker 1: that conversation like it was yesterday, was before I was
Speaker 1: going off to campus, and it was like ten fingers.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, that makes sense? But
Speaker 1: looking back, it perpetuating sex negativity, and like everything that
Speaker 1: you just stated about what's being sex negative is yeah.
Speaker 3: My mom will even like God bless her, she'll say
Speaker 3: things like I can count enough people I've been on
Speaker 3: one hand. Right, does that mean going to have it?
Speaker 3: What does that translate into? I don't even know what
Speaker 3: that means? What does it mean? What is the badge
Speaker 3: of honor? There? Right? Again, I'm sure that was ingrained
Speaker 3: from her mother and her mother and her mother. Right.
Speaker 3: And if you think about decades of the things that
Speaker 3: women had to do in order to have some level
Speaker 3: of security, being partnered and being married to a man
Speaker 3: was one of those things. And if we think about
Speaker 3: decades ago, our grandparents' grandparents, they wanted to marry a
Speaker 3: woman who hadn't sexually debuted yet, and so I think
Speaker 3: it's just this idea of desirability. Right, If I potentially
Speaker 3: want to have this long term partnership, what are the
Speaker 3: things that I can do to be more desirable? And
Speaker 3: I think one of those things are not really exploring
Speaker 3: yourself sexually. If I don't know the things that bring
Speaker 3: me joy sexually, what pleasure really looks like for me,
Speaker 3: and I enter into this lifelong covenant with someone i e. Marriage,
Speaker 3: then whatever you do, I just got to take it
Speaker 3: because I don't even know what pleasure looks like, you know,
Speaker 3: So I might just let you hunch me at night,
Speaker 3: because that's what they say I'm supposed to do. I
Speaker 3: think a bridgeton, I don't know if you watched Queen
Speaker 3: Charlotte or like, just like the examples of these women
Speaker 3: who are just literally laying down to just pro create,
Speaker 3: and they just look like they are not experiencing any
Speaker 3: levels of joy, any levels of pleasure. That culture, I think,
Speaker 3: still bleeds into many of the conversations that we're having now,
Speaker 3: which is why the only way to describe it is antiquated.
Speaker 3: We cannot keep talking about bod.
Speaker 2: Accounts, right, I agree?
Speaker 1: How can college students or younger women navigate the shame
Speaker 1: around their sexuality, their sexual activity, the negative messages that
Speaker 1: they ever sived from family, friends, society. How can they
Speaker 1: navigate it?
Speaker 3: It's hard. I would say, it's definitely hard because in
Speaker 3: college you're still learning yourself. Right. We say to these people,
Speaker 3: especially people who go to college traditionally at eighteen seventeen eighteen, like,
Speaker 3: go forth, be Mary, make all these decisions. Know what
Speaker 3: you want to do for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3: The thing that I thought I wanted to do when
Speaker 3: I entered college is absolutely not what I'm doing. I
Speaker 3: didn't even know the type of work that I do exist.
Speaker 3: And so I say all that, like, it's hard because
Speaker 3: you're still learning yourself and a lot of people are
Speaker 3: going into college very uninformed about sexual reproductive health, right,
Speaker 3: And so I would say the shame comes when you're
Speaker 3: not informed. I would also say having a good community
Speaker 3: or resources or place it you can just ask questions too.
Speaker 3: If you don't have information, you can ask questions. Having
Speaker 3: a solid friend group, whether that be your friend group
Speaker 3: from high school or people that you trust in college,
Speaker 3: which I know that can look very different. I don't
Speaker 3: necessarily think that you need to yell from the mountaintop
Speaker 3: and what your sexual decisions are are the things that
Speaker 3: you're exploring or the people whom you're choosing to be
Speaker 3: intimate with. And so I think I would say like,
Speaker 3: as you're figuring it out, keep it close to yourself
Speaker 3: and or people that you trust. And I know trusting
Speaker 3: friends can be something that is very challenging for a
Speaker 3: college student to figure out. But once you find your community,
Speaker 3: really hold on to that community and talk with them
Speaker 3: about what it is that you're thinking and feeling, because
Speaker 3: not times out of ten you're not the only right.
Speaker 3: You might just be the first to initiate the.
Speaker 1: Conversation exactly how can lgbtqiaplus students find sex and resources
Speaker 1: specific to their identity?
Speaker 3: Yeah, such a good question. I think that the Internet
Speaker 3: is a great resource, but I would encourage folks to
Speaker 3: check out plantparenthood dot org. There's so much information around that,
Speaker 3: I think sexual health resources. Whether you want to engage
Speaker 3: in oral or rational sex, there's going to be always
Speaker 3: information about different types of safe sex practices and or
Speaker 3: devices that a person can use. Now, is that information
Speaker 3: going to be cognizant of talking about body parts and
Speaker 3: not necessarily use gender language, maybe not. And so I
Speaker 3: would encourage a person who identifies with being LGBTQ plus
Speaker 3: to just look for resources that talk about the different
Speaker 3: types of safe sex practices that you might be engaging in.
Speaker 3: Whatever that looks like. Yeah, that would be my advice.
Speaker 3: But I always say plant parenthood is a great place
Speaker 3: to start.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, I'm curious to know what are some signs of
Speaker 1: sexual abuse? Are Black women more susceptible to sexual abuse
Speaker 1: and other groups?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Good question. It's such a hard question because I think,
Speaker 3: again back to this idea of sexual reproductive health education
Speaker 3: or just education. I don't think people are really clear
Speaker 3: about what sexual abuse looks like, other than what we
Speaker 3: see on special victims, you know, what we see on
Speaker 3: TV shows, which are oftentimes very extreme circumstances. I would
Speaker 3: say educating yourself on what sexual abuse looks like. You know,
Speaker 3: even basic to sexual harassment. What is sexual harassment? If
Speaker 3: you are walking down the street and someone grazes you
Speaker 3: and or touches you at a party and you don't
Speaker 3: necessarily care for that, that is a form of sexual harassment,
Speaker 3: you know. And so I think at minimum we need
Speaker 3: to educate ourselves Black women for sure, College students even
Speaker 3: more about what is sexual abuse? What a sexual harassment?
Speaker 3: What is it to be sexually violated? Because I think
Speaker 3: oftentimes people just go to the extreme, like forced into force,
Speaker 3: which is not necessarily always the case. There are also
Speaker 3: smaller things that might happen that maybe you may be
Speaker 3: comfortable with. And I think about when I was in college,
Speaker 3: which wasn't that long time ago. What it's a different
Speaker 3: like that was a little while ago, but some of
Speaker 3: the things that went on in parties or in the
Speaker 3: door rooms, it's like, oh wait, this is not okay
Speaker 3: and could potentially be a form of sexual harassment. But
Speaker 3: people just weren't informed, and so at minimum, I would
Speaker 3: say get informed. Anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, anything
Speaker 3: that is a violation of your boundary, whatever that physical
Speaker 3: boundary is, that's a violation. It could potentially be a
Speaker 3: form of sexual harassment, assault, abuse, et cetera. Obviously, bruising
Speaker 3: is an indicator. I would also say if you have
Speaker 3: a friend who is isolating themselves, that can be an
Speaker 3: indicator of some form of abuse or even interpersonal violence
Speaker 3: with a partner. And so isolation if you notice it's
Speaker 3: just a difference in like the way that they're carrying themselves,
Speaker 3: like maybe they seem a little bit more down, they're
Speaker 3: not in a good space, and or the way in
Speaker 3: which maybe they're talking about their partner or specific day
Speaker 3: or time. I think all of those can be indicators
Speaker 3: that person may have had a negative experience.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, How can a friend or a family member best
Speaker 1: show up for someone who they think has experienced sexual
Speaker 1: abuse or assault or harassment?
Speaker 3: Yes, I think the best thing to do is listen, listen,
Speaker 3: believe that survivor ask them what the support looked like.
Speaker 3: I think sometimes we want to just be fixers. I
Speaker 3: know for me that's like, Okay, what do I need
Speaker 3: to do? How can I fix it? But I think
Speaker 3: asking them what support looks like if they don't know,
Speaker 3: because a lot of times we don't even know what
Speaker 3: we want as support, I would say just showing up
Speaker 3: as a friend checking in. You certainly want to believe
Speaker 3: you definitely don't want a victim blame, right. I think again,
Speaker 3: back to this culture of things that we were reared to,
Speaker 3: Well what were you wearing? Well, what did you say
Speaker 3: were you drinking? Did you say you were okay with it?
Speaker 3: At two pm? But now at ten pm, you're not
Speaker 3: okay what they will now consent is gone, right, don't
Speaker 3: victim blame, Listen, provide support, remain available, and just show
Speaker 3: whatever they need be there for them. I think just
Speaker 3: listening and not victim blaming is going to be two
Speaker 3: critical things with supporting a loved one who may have
Speaker 3: experienced some type of violation.
Speaker 1: I love that, and I think it's important just to
Speaker 1: recognize how common it is on these campuses than we
Speaker 1: think that it occurs, and that we need to support
Speaker 1: a friend or a friend of a friend. It's so common,
Speaker 1: And so I love all the tips that you just
Speaker 1: gave because I wish I would have had more of
Speaker 1: those while in.
Speaker 2: School for sure. Same same, more from our conversation after
Speaker 2: the break.
Speaker 1: How can school admin better support college students who've experienced
Speaker 1: concerns about their sexuality orxual assault?
Speaker 3: I think admin can do like a way better job educating.
Speaker 3: I feel like freshmen should have to take courses around
Speaker 3: sexual reproductive health like legit, because most of these young
Speaker 3: people have did not get it when they were in
Speaker 3: high school, and then you send them to college and
Speaker 3: it's a free for all, and so I think that
Speaker 3: there should be a requirement for sexual reproductive health education
Speaker 3: your first semester freshman. Yeah, the same way they make
Speaker 3: you take those freshmen like basic classes where they try
Speaker 3: to teach you time management. Child. I think there needs
Speaker 3: to be and embedding of sexual reproductive health. Like I
Speaker 3: think about all the policies that I have learned about now,
Speaker 3: like title nine in my adult life doing this work,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I'm sure I did the orientation video
Speaker 3: where I just clicked through, click through, click through, But
Speaker 3: I don't remember ever having access to resources in a
Speaker 3: way that I knew what my rights were as a student,
Speaker 3: and or I felt informed and encouraged to share if
Speaker 3: ever I had been violated it, or know where to
Speaker 3: go other than to go to the campus police. Who
Speaker 3: do I go to? Are there conflence services that I
Speaker 3: can access to really explore was I actually violated? What
Speaker 3: about consent? Oh, my goodness. Outside of not being able
Speaker 3: to spell consent, they most definitely don't know what consent
Speaker 3: is right? What is consent? How do you know that
Speaker 3: a person is happily agreeing to the thing? Can consent
Speaker 3: be withdrawn? Absolutely? So? Again, if I send my boothing
Speaker 3: a text message at two pm, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's on tonight after the party is lit. And then
Speaker 3: after the party I'm like, I don't really want to,
Speaker 3: and I say, no, you no longer have my consent, right.
Speaker 3: I think about how many people in college engage in
Speaker 3: sexual experiences while drunk, while on some type of narcotic
Speaker 3: that is not consensual. It's legally not consensual, And so
Speaker 3: I think a class of course where it's like, you
Speaker 3: have to sit and do this. It's not a press
Speaker 3: the next answer five questions, and now we have proof
Speaker 3: that you take in this sexual harassment training, and that
Speaker 3: is good for you for the next four plus years
Speaker 3: that you're going to be in college. There needs to
Speaker 3: be this not only happen in freshman year, but this
Speaker 3: refresher in which we're reiterating to young people on college campuses.
Speaker 3: Here's where your resources are, and remember, this is what
Speaker 3: consent looks like, how to receive it and also how
Speaker 3: to give it, because I think there's a lost conversation
Speaker 3: around how do you give consent in a way that
Speaker 3: you're comfortable with? And I think oftentimes you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: did the guy get consent? He got consent, But are
Speaker 3: we also making sure that we're educating our black and
Speaker 3: brown girl on how to give consent or how to
Speaker 3: refuse a sexual evance. I think all of that is lost,
Speaker 3: and I think colleges can definitely do a better job
Speaker 3: and making sure that their students are informed.
Speaker 1: I fully agree, and it's going off of consent. It's
Speaker 1: super known that parties can be a place for students
Speaker 1: can I have fun, but are also a place of
Speaker 1: higher instances of sexual assault. We often hear advice you
Speaker 1: know you protect your drinks, you're in a group. What
Speaker 1: are some other tips or pieces of advice that you
Speaker 1: can give to students to stay vigilant in such settings?
Speaker 3: I would say code words see your friends. Oh girl.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about when I was in college and I
Speaker 3: started undergrad in two thousand and six, and I remember
Speaker 3: my mom saying things to me like, oh, make sure
Speaker 3: you cover your drink, and like, I just don't think
Speaker 3: roofie was a thing. When I was in college. There
Speaker 3: was definitely a cause, like I'm not going to the
Speaker 3: bar and leaving my drink uncovered because like, people are weird.
Speaker 3: But it's less about oh, you're gonna put a roofie
Speaker 3: in my drink. And also like germs right, like just germs,
Speaker 3: But I think cod words with your friends, right, like
Speaker 3: we want to give our friends all time and be like, ooh, girl,
Speaker 3: he kind of cute. You want to go home with
Speaker 3: him or whatever, But like, hey, friend, when I say pineapples,
Speaker 3: just get me out the situation. The dope part about
Speaker 3: just now and technologies like you can share your locations
Speaker 3: with your friends if you're going on a date with
Speaker 3: someone that you haven't met. I also, I would say, obviously,
Speaker 3: as best as you can stay coherent and aware, So
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be unrealistic and say don't drink, especially if
Speaker 3: you're of age over the age of twenty one and
Speaker 3: year in college. I would be a hypocrite if I
Speaker 3: said don't drink while you're turning up in college, right,
Speaker 3: But being mindful of what your limits are, I would say,
Speaker 3: knowing what your limits are, is it that third shot
Speaker 3: that's gonna send you over the edge? Usually by college? Okay,
Speaker 3: not the brown I'm not a brown girl. I'm a
Speaker 3: light girl. Right, whatever type of alcohol you drink, just
Speaker 3: being drinking and consuming whatever it is responsibly. I think
Speaker 3: it's also important just so that you're in as best
Speaker 3: of a sober mind to make decisions, and just being
Speaker 3: around a community of people that you trust. Like I
Speaker 3: know when I was at undergrad, if we came into
Speaker 3: the club together, we are leaving together. There is no oh,
Speaker 3: I'm about to go over here dip off with this
Speaker 3: one to go to his room. No no, no, no no
Speaker 3: no no no no no no, because you have enough
Speaker 3: time from us leaving the club, go into the room
Speaker 3: packing a little spending night bag. So now kind of
Speaker 3: sober up a little bit and make decisions. So I
Speaker 3: would say having a solid group of friends and community
Speaker 3: and college is going to be really important. That can
Speaker 3: also be your gauging point. Like since you sure you
Speaker 3: want to do this, okay, all right, I respect you
Speaker 3: will text me checking in. I think those things are
Speaker 3: really really important.
Speaker 1: I love the code word. I love that I didn't
Speaker 1: think about that. I love that you talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about Title nine. But can you explain what Title
Speaker 1: nine is and why might it be important for a
Speaker 1: student to be aware of this law?
Speaker 3: So that's such a good question. So Title nine is
Speaker 3: this law that really prohibits any type of sex based
Speaker 3: discrimination in K through twelve as well as college schools.
Speaker 3: We oftentimes see it in sports. We see it around
Speaker 3: sexual assault cases in which survivors are trying to hold
Speaker 3: the school responsible for whatever may have happened to them
Speaker 3: when they were violated. We're seeing it a lot now
Speaker 3: in a lot of the conversations, right trans young people
Speaker 3: playing on whatever sports or having gender neutral bathroom, anything
Speaker 3: that can be sex based discrimination is usually tied up
Speaker 3: into title nine.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, thank you for explaining that, doctor Thorne. What are
Speaker 1: three to five things that students should keep in mind
Speaker 1: when thinking about having safe sex?
Speaker 3: Again? I will say, no, you're basic anatomy, right, I
Speaker 3: would say, be comfortable exploring what pleasure looks like to you,
Speaker 3: whatever that means to you. And of course this is
Speaker 3: for college aged folks, right, exploring what pleasure looks like
Speaker 3: to you, know your anatomy, I would say, explore what
Speaker 3: unintended pregnancy options may look like to you. If you're
Speaker 3: engaging in vational sex, and it is this possibility to
Speaker 3: get pregnant, Like, what are your pregnancy options? What is
Speaker 3: your stance on there? Most certainly you want to explore
Speaker 3: what contraceptive use looks like to you. Right, if you
Speaker 3: are a female body person having sex with a male body, person,
Speaker 3: there is a possibility for unintended pregnancy, So are you
Speaker 3: going to only depend on that male body person to
Speaker 3: use a condom? Are you interested in getting on hormonal
Speaker 3: birth control? Are you interested in long term birth control
Speaker 3: like the iuz or the implant that can stay in
Speaker 3: for a couple of years, And so exploring what does
Speaker 3: making those decisions around your body look like? I would
Speaker 3: also say being open to again, what does sex, sexuality,
Speaker 3: sexual expression, gender identity, sexual orientation look like it mean
Speaker 3: to you, not what you were taught, not what you
Speaker 3: were exposed to and your upbringing because we bring those
Speaker 3: values into our college basis because that's all we know.
Speaker 3: And so exploring what that looks like your basic anatomy,
Speaker 3: exploring what pleasure looks like, exploring what your safe sex
Speaker 3: practices will be right? Which ones do you want to explore?
Speaker 3: Maybe you want to try the birth control fail you
Speaker 3: didn't like how that made you feel, okay, maybe you'll
Speaker 3: try something now on hormonal And then if you are
Speaker 3: engaged in vaginal penal sex, like, what does the possibility
Speaker 3: of pregnancy options look like for you? If you're choosing
Speaker 3: not to use safe for sex practices? And the last
Speaker 3: thing I will add is, at what frequency will you
Speaker 3: go get tested get screened for STIs? Because what's important
Speaker 3: if you are going to be sexually active that you
Speaker 3: also are sexually responsible and screen yourself for possible infections. Right.
Speaker 1: Do you have any recommended podcasts or books that we
Speaker 1: should look into to deepen our knowledge on exploring your sexuality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not saying that college students don't read books,
Speaker 3: but I'm saying that college students barely want to read
Speaker 3: the book that they got for class. So I would
Speaker 3: say some Instagram pages that I really appreciate is act Goodie.
Speaker 3: Really enjoy Goodie's work. Sex with Ashley is also a
Speaker 3: great ig page. One of my sister friends. Her work
Speaker 3: is so dope because she really explores intimacy but with
Speaker 3: the Christian lens for black women, so her name is
Speaker 3: the Intimacy Firm. I would encourage folks to look at that.
Speaker 3: I enjoy sham Boudrum. She also has a podcast called
Speaker 3: Lovers and Friends and it's always great dialogue around sexuality relationships.
Speaker 3: And then there's this podcast called Not Another Sex Podcast,
Speaker 3: which is like such a perfect name for the podcast,
Speaker 3: and they do some really good dialogues. As well around
Speaker 3: sex and sexuality and pleasure. So I think those are
Speaker 3: like really great starting points just to get information around
Speaker 3: like exploring sexuality for a young adult at college. Just
Speaker 3: try to figure this thing out one day at a time.
Speaker 1: Right, something easy, quick digestible on my phone.
Speaker 3: Back right. The other thing about books is like books
Speaker 3: are really cool, but by the time the book is
Speaker 3: probably published, some new information has came out, a new
Speaker 3: term has come out, right, And so it's like I
Speaker 3: think podcasts and even social media platforms are just the
Speaker 3: easier way to get quick digestible information about a topic
Speaker 3: of your choosing.
Speaker 1: Right, And but back to your point, college, she didn't
Speaker 1: have enough to read. I think on Instagram and Instagram page,
Speaker 1: it's probably more for a college student. So I definitely
Speaker 1: love that.
Speaker 3: You're on Instagram anyway.
Speaker 1: Right, on Instagram anyway, TikTok, Instagram, all of it.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly Where.
Speaker 1: Can we keep up with you? What are your social
Speaker 1: media handles and our website?
Speaker 3: Yes, so check me out. My Instagram is a miss
Speaker 3: z lotus, So M I S S D E E
Speaker 3: L O t U S please follow me tag me
Speaker 3: I am a hoots. I think my Instagram is really
Speaker 3: me walking in my most authentic self, so please feel
Speaker 3: free to follow me. I'm also on LinkedIn if folks
Speaker 3: wanted to have a conversation with me around just my
Speaker 3: career trajectory, any support that I can provide for anyone
Speaker 3: who's interested in the field of sexual reproductive health education.
Speaker 3: My name on there is Daniella Thorn. So d is
Speaker 3: in dog A n I E l l A. Last
Speaker 3: name is Thorn's t isn't tom h O r n E.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to connect with any young person, especially young
Speaker 3: black girl that's just trying to be out here. You're
Speaker 3: making it let's tap girl perfect.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for sharing this with us.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, Doctor Thorne.
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: I want to thank doctor Thorn once again for joining
Speaker 1: us for this episode. Class is over for now, but
Speaker 1: not before we assign homework from our conversation today. Take
Speaker 1: the following notes home with you. Get tested often for
Speaker 1: all sdis if you are sexually active, if you identify
Speaker 1: as LGBTQI plus, seek out resources with credible organizations like
Speaker 1: Planned Parenthood. Be open to exploring what your sexual identity is,
Speaker 1: what pleasure means to you and what safe sex practices
Speaker 1: work best for your body. To learn more about the
Speaker 1: work doctor Thorn is doing, or to do more research
Speaker 1: on this topic be short, visit Therapy for Blackgirls dot
Speaker 1: com backslash t b g U. This episode was produced
Speaker 1: by Frida Lucas, Elise Ellis, and Zaria Taylor. Editing is
Speaker 1: by Dennison L.
Speaker 3: Bradford