From our conviction that we are beings for contact, bonding and social life, that we are deeply interdependent, that we need each other to survive, and that care should be shared, we believe that educational and social conditions must be established so that each person can build their sexual and affective biography in a positive, diverse way, without gender discriminatory elements and free of risks, so that they assume that when they maintain a relationship that involves another person, it must be guided by the relational ethics of pleasure and shared well-being, without coercion or deception.
Many are the voices that demand Affective Sexual Education.
Given the harsh reality we are experiencing (increase in STIs, sexual violence, teenage pregnancies, emotional loneliness...) there is much talk lately about the need for Affective Sexual Education (ASE). However, approaches from the point of view of equality, diversity and integrality are not so frequent, nor is an approach that starts from understanding that this ASE should help build relationships marked by respect and empowerment. ASE is not a one-off event, nor can it be specified in a talk by a specialist or activist; it is a long-term training path that involves personal work.
In the Report Sexual and reproductive rights, basic human rights: Health and educational policies on sexual and reproductive health in the Canary Islands: Abandonment and dismantling, prepared by the Harimaguada Collective, we found that, despite the 9 years of validity of the Law on sexual and reproductive health and IVE, the health and educational policies of the Government of the Canary Islands, far from reinforcing what was mandated, have led to a clear deterioration in affective-sexual education, attention to sexual and reproductive health, prevention of gender violence; both due to the progressive dismantling of plans, programs, resources and services previously existing in the area of sexuality, and due to the change of approach experienced: compared to the integral model that tended in previous times, a fragmented vision has been imposed, with specific actions and measures.
This report had an important media and political impact, achieving that, from different organizations and institutions, public pronouncements of commitment were made to implement social and educational measures to redirect the alarming situation that it shows us regarding the situation of sexual and reproductive rights in the Canary Islands. But the truth is that, in practice, we do not visualize the integral, community approaches that are necessary. The possibilities for educating are many, but they cannot be patches, nor actions for photos, they require going to the root of the problem.
What do we mean when we demand Affective Sexual Education?
It is about educating safe and confident people, with adequate attachment bonds, who positively value life, affections, sexuality, relationships and other people, with well-founded affective and sexual knowledge, who are able to accept and build their own sexual and loving biography, diverse in orientations (homo, hetero, bisexuality...), in identities (men, women, intersex, trans*...) and in desires, who value the richness of this diversity, who assume a sexuality that changes throughout life, shaped through the processes of learning and socialization and our tastes and desires.
People with empathy, capable of recognizing, managing and resolving in a positive, healthy, egalitarian and pleasant way affective bonds, communication, eroticism, accompaniment, bodily intimacy, sexual affections (desire, attraction, infatuation) and social (friendship, love, altruism...), whose capacity for choice is guided by the values of "good treatment, well-being"; with social and interpersonal skills, with protection factors against problems and risks, with a clear co-responsible relational ethic, an ethic of pleasure, health, care, the right to bonding and disengagement, the right to free motherhood and fatherhood?
It is necessary that girls, boys and young people, in all their diversity, learn how to relate, how to express their emotions, how to shape their own feelings without overwhelming the desire of the other person, how to accept their frustrations in the face of the impossibility of carrying out their most primary desires or the decisions that arise from the most elaborate reasoning. It is essential to work on self-esteem and self-confidence, develop affective independence, assertiveness, the expression of feelings, asking for help, knowing how to say yes and no with one's own freedom and without pressure from the group, and interpreting and accepting the yes and no of the other person without it implying a detriment to their integrity. We need learning in good treatment, in respect, in humanity.
It is essential to deconstruct stereotyped and erroneous ideas about femininity and masculinity, critically examining the models of love in which this society socializes us, emptying violent models of attractiveness and developing tastes and preferences for models of people with egalitarian values; that they can live diverse relationships, without hierarchies, impositions or inequalities, relationships that do not imply domination or subordination, nor are a breeding ground for violence.
This Affective Sexual Education requires a determined and committed commitment.
But for this it is necessary to put the means, the economic resources so that the EAS, as a task shared by all social agents, is a reality in practice. It is urgent to launch comprehensive, biographical education and sexuality care plans, from a positive vision of the human sexual act, not heteronormative, from equality and diversity, with the involvement of its protagonists, as a shared responsibility. An EAS that is a primary function of families because it is in them where we acquire our emotional security, where we learn to live together, to enjoy, to relate affectively. An EAS that is a fundamental task of educational centers and socio-health services because they are the places where all people can have equal access to this comprehensive training and care, to an education and care that must meet human needs. An EAS that is also crucial from the media, which should transmit positive, egalitarian values of respect, of enjoyment of the multiple ways of living our relationships. An EAS that has to do with a process of building a more just and more human society, a society where affection for ourselves and other people, together with respect, tolerance, solidarity, justice and care, are the basic values that help us to relate in a positive and egalitarian way.
We need other models of life and relationships that do not harm people, that dignify life. This requires that human needs are at the center of the political action of governments. It requires resources and political will. In its demand we continue!
By Mary C. Bolaños Espinosa
Colectivo Harimaguada
