[nabs-l] Sex Ed, and Missing Visual Info

[Valerie Gibson]

Well said, Arielle, as always. :)
On Jul 12, 2012, at 8:17 PM, Arielle Silverman wrote:

> Hi all,
> I agree with the opinion that blind students don't really need a
> special sex ed curriculum just for us, any more than we need a
> specialized math or geography or biology curriculum. Instead, we
> should have access to the materials given to sighted students in an
> accessible format, and we should be able to find books about sex in
> Braille and to find Internet resources we can browse privately if we
> have questions or concerns.
> While we have probably talked this particular issue to death, I do
> think this discussion brings up some important and controversial
> questions about how we should cope with all the visual information we
> don't routinely get that sighted people get. It is quite clear that
> sighted people observe lots of things around them visually that blind
> people don't automatically observe. However, it is also quite clear
> that blind people can function well in society, get an education,
> work, have hobbies, marry, raise kids and generally do all the things
> sighted people do, without all this incidental visual info. And blind
> people are no less intelligent than sighted people simply because of
> this lack of exposure to the visual world. It makes me wonder, How
> much of that visual info is really critically necessary for us to
> function? How much effort do we really need to put in to get access to
> all that visual info? In my experience, I believe part of being a
> successful blind person is figuring out what visual info is really
> critically important for a given job or task, getting access to that
> critical info and just not spending too much effort on those things
> that aren't critically important. Sitting around mourning all the
> visual info we miss out on, by itself, doesn't get us very far.
> To give an example that moves this topic back to academics, I earned a
> bachelor's degree in biology in 2007. I have been totally blind my
> whole life and I haven't a clue what most plants, animals and fungi
> look like. I only vaguely know what a cell or a chromosome looks like.
> Nevertheless, I earned my biology degree and I dare say, got higher
> grades than many of my sighted classmates. It turned out that knowing
> what living things look like is not very important for understanding
> biology. What does matter is understanding what part of the cell does
> what function, the steps of photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and
> DNA replication, and how genetic traits are inherited. So I learned
> these things and just didn't worry about all that visual stuff. If any
> of it had turned out to matter, then I would have gotten some tactile
> diagrams and worked with someone to ensure I understood what these
> things looked like. But it didn't matter and so I didn't worry about
> it. I could have chosen not to study biology because of concerns that
> the curriculum for sighted students is so visual, but instead of
> focusing on what I was missing, I found myself able to focus on what I
> could process with my mind like everyone else did, and I was fine.
> Similarly, with sex, it's true that we often don't know what a lot of
> things look like, but again, in my experience this hasn't put me at a
> significant disadvantage. I don't know what a diaphragm looks like but
> I do know how it is supposed to be used and what the benefits and
> disadvantages are of this particular birth control method. I did not
> know exactly what the male sex organs look like until my first sexual
> encounter when I was 21, but that really had no effect on my
> participation in sex. I have not seen couples making out on the
> street, or engaging in sexual acts, but I learned how to do these
> things through a combination of experience and the instinctive
> knowledge we share with other animals in this area. I can't really
> think of any way my current sex life would have been improved if I had
> had access to all this visual info. Regarding sexual education, I
> think the most important information is about the various forms of
> birth control and how it can be obtained, and about safer sex options.
> Given all that, I do think the blind can face a real disadvantage when
> it comes to flirting and dating. This is not just because sighted
> people don't always feel comfortable around us, or don't think of us
> as sexual beings, but also because we can miss signals that someone is
> interested or don't know how to send appropriate signals when we are
> interested in someone else. Unfortunately there aren't easy solutions
> to many of these issues, because no matter how much training we might
> get, we still can't see the signals others are sending us. But there
> are some strategies we can use to meet people and to build friendships
> which might eventually evolve into romances. I do think having
> discussions about dating etc. as part of blindness training for teens
> and young adults is a good idea.
> Best,
> Arielle
> 
> _______________________________________________
> nabs-l mailing list
> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nabs-l:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/valandkayla%40gmail.com