Why I Like the Seven Days Article on Our Whole Lives

Seven Days, which bills itself as “Vermont’s Alternative Webweekly,” has an awesome article this week on Our Whole Lives (as noted by this week’s Unitarian Universalists in the Media).

Our Whole Lives is a sexuality education program developed by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ, and offered in congregations in both denominations. Our Whole Lives provides children, youth and adults with knowledge about sexuality that will help them to make safe, healthy choices. Curriculum materials are available for each of the following groups: grades K-1, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, and adults. Our Whole Lives was launched in 1996.

Our Whole Lives is exceptional because it is a comprehensive sexuality education course that is offered in a religious setting, meaning that it covers topics such as sexual orientation and reproductive health in a complete and non-stigmatizing way. (The United Church of Christ website section on Our Whole Lives is good starting place to learn more about the course).

There are several reasons that I liked “Just Say Know: Finally, faith based sex education that doesn’t leave teens groping in the dark” the Seven Days article by Ken Picard.

1. “Just Say Know” highlights stories and quotations from youth who have participated in the program, from program facilitators, and from a Unitarian Universalist minister.

Amelia Schlossberg is a 16-year-old junior at Burlington High School who went through OWL at the UU three years ago. She remembers being nervous, confused and more than a little embarrassed about taking sex ed at her church. “There was a lot of laughing and giggling the first day of class. You’re sitting there telling kids, ‘Oh, my gosh! My parents are forcing me to come to this. I can’t believe I’m here!’” she says. “But of course I was curious. I mean, who isn’t at that age?”

2. Picard focuses on Our Whole Lives at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington, but also places the program in a larger national context. He explains why Our Whole Lives is a much-needed antidote to the federally-supported abstinence-only programs that are taught in public schools. Picard points out that the abstinence-only approach is ineffective, and that the abstinence-only program taught at Burlington High School includes significant medical inaccuracies. He also compares Our Whole Lives to how sexuality is taught at local parochial schools.

3. The article explains that OWL is not value-neutral. As Picard explains,

OWL does not preach a non-judgmental, “anything-goes” attitude toward sexuality, says Diane Freiheit, a Burlington sex therapist and OWL instructor. As she points out, the OWL philosophy recognizes that sex can be used to coerce, control, degrade and exploit people. As a result, the curriculum addresses not just physical safety, such as protecting oneself against rape and sexual assault, but also emotional safety, including maintaining positive body images and understanding the power differentials that can exist in relationships. Simply put, Freiheit says, the emphasis is always on expressing one’s sexuality in healthy and life-affirming ways.

But not too early. While it bears scant resemblance to an abstinence-only program, the OWL curriculum for seventh- and eighth-graders remains abstinence-based, in that it strongly discourages teens from having sex prematurely.

4. Picard gets that Our Whole Lives is about spirituality, as well as sexuality. Many people may ask “Why is a church teaching comprehensive sex ed? What does that have to do with religion?” Picard quotes Rev. Gary Kowalski, the minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington, at length.

Is there a spiritual component to OWL? Kowalski believes so. “I think love is spiritual. I think feeling at home in your own body is spiritual,” he says. “And I think being able to be intimate with another person, not just physically but emotionally, is spiritual.”