The Young Adult’s Guide to Sex Ed

Hi, my name is Laura Chanoski. I’m a graduate student at Temple University and I’m currently working towards my Masters in Media Studies and Production. My main focus during my studies has been gender and sexuality media representation. Temple University is giving me an amazing opportunity to create media content with the purpose of presenting positive gender and sexuality representation in lieu of my Masters thesis. With this opportunity, I’m creating a sexual education web series.  

As an adult looking back on the sexual education I received in school I’ve realized that there were a lot of things I never learned, such as: what the clitoris is, how to put on a condom, and that your genitals do not define your gender. My goal is to create a sexual education web series that presents information in such a way that it is gender and sexuality inclusive as well as medically accurate. 

The series will contain 5-7 episodes covering a variety of topics, such as: sex, gender, and sexuality, human anatomy, procreation, safe sex, and consent. I believe covering these specific topics in a sexual education setting is extremely important. According to a recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, only 22 states in the US are required to teach sexual education in schools, and out of those states only eight are legally required to teach medically accurate information. This means there are a lot of people out there who are unprepared and uninformed. Of course the situation is even worse for those who identify as LGBT.  According to the same study, 12 out of 50 states are required to include information on sexual orientation. Three of those states, Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas, are only allowed to present negative information about sexual orientation.

Series Outline

This is a rough outline of what the series will look like. The series will consist of five to seven 10-15 minute episodes. Each episode will consist of the host discussing the topic in depth with clips, skits, and animation interspersed throughout the episode.

• The first episode will cover sex, gender, and sexuality. This episode will discuss how these three identities can be related to one another and how they can have no connection at all. There will also be a discussion on common gender and sexual identities.
• The next two episodes will cover genitals and gonads. One episode will discuss the vulva, vagina, clitoris, uterus, and ovaries. The other will discuss the penis, testicles, epididymis, vas deferens, and seminal vesicles. These episodes will rely heavily on animation to show how the gonads and genitals look and function.
• The fourth episode will discuss intersex people. The goal of this episode is to bring awareness to intersex conditions and educate the viewer on several common intersex conditions such as Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Turner’s syndrome, and Klinefelter Syndrome. The episode will include what happens to many intersex people whose genitals do not clearly fit into a male or female sex, such as genital reconstruction.
• Episode five will discuss procreation, focusing mostly on egg fertilization. The episode will briefly cover the different ways an egg may be fertilized, including penis in vagina sex, artificial insemination, and in vitro fertilization (IVF). This episode will rely mostly on animation to show how fertilization happens.
• The final episode will cover safe sex and consent. This episode will list different methods of STI and pregnancy prevention. It also will show how each method is used and how they work. Along with information on safe sex, the importance of consent will be discussed. 

What We Need

For this campaign I’m setting the goal at $5000. As of right now I’m only planning on using $3500 to complete this project, but I’m asking for more to cover any additional costs that may or may not pop up. Any funds that are not used during the production of the series will be donated to an LGBT charity. 

If this campaign doesn’t reach its goal, any money raised will go towards purchasing props first, then additional production costs, paying an animator, and finally equipment transportation. 

The Impact

By donating to this campaign, we will be able to create a valuable resource for those who are not receiving or cannot receive adequate sexual education. This project will also be a step towards showing what sexual education in schools can look like and how it can be improved. 

The main challenge that this project will face is cissexism. (Cissexism is the appeal to norms that enforce the gender binary and gender essentialism, which is then used in the oppression of gender variant (non-binary) and transgender identities.)  As I am a cisgender female I do not know what it is like to be transgender or non-binary, and this might lead to accidental cissexism. Preventing cissexism is one of my main goals, so research will be comprehensive and come from reliable trans-friendly sources. If something cissexist makes it into an episode and the episode is released, a correction will be made along with a sincere apology. 

Other Ways You Can Help

If you can’t donate, that’s okay! You can still help out get the word out about this campaign by sharing this page on social media.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLnsxdXbNYo
See Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-young-adult-s-guide-to-sex-ed#/
Contact Information:
Laura Chanoski

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