May 08, 2024

“Can You Get An STI If Both People Have Never Had Sex???” —a question box answer by Dr. Joanna Palmieri

May 08, 2024/ Dr. Joanna Palmieri

So the short answer has to start with,”How do you define having sex?” Sex encompasses the physical activity between people that involves touching each other’s genitals. That touching can happen in many different ways including genital to genital, anus or mouth, as well as fingers and even objects. All of these can lead to the transmission of an STI or sexually transmitted infection, so let’s define that while we are at it. An STI results from the exchange of infected bodily fluids or skin cells. Bodily fluids including semen as well as pre-ejaculate, vaginal fluids and blood. Other STIs can be passed to partners via skin to skin contact with an infected body area.

May 08, 2024

What Are the Kids Calling It These Days?

May 08, 2024/ Emmalinda MacLean

A glossary of slang we’ve gotten from students recently

One of the joys of teaching is how much you learn from your students, and sex-ed class is a great place for a rich vocabulary exchange. Sometimes they’re testing us; sometimes it’s to make their classmates laugh. Fortunately urbandictionary.com provides a wealth of resources for cracking the code and showing the youths that yeah, we know a thing or two. Read on for some of the new terms we’ve seen most often in the past few months–mostly from 7th, 8th, and 9th graders–and the “teachable moments” they’ve offered.

December 06, 2023

Making Connections and Making an Impact

December 06, 2023/ Emmalinda MacLean

I love what I do. I’m grateful every day to have meaningful work that I know benefits young

people, even when it’s hard. Sometimes it can be challenging to have such a short amount of

time with a class; relationship building is immeasurably valuable to education, and we often

don’t get to know the students the same way their regular teachers do. But it’s beautiful to see

the impact we can have, even with just a few sessions, and to know that those messages will

last for years—even decades—after we’ve left their campus. Here’s a short list of some recent

highlights from the classroom:

November 08, 2023

Praise for AMAZE! by Emma Milkin

November 08, 2023/ Emma Milkin

Just a couple of weeks ago, I got the chance to take part in a virtual conference hosted by AMAZE, and have nothing but positive things to report back.

For example, in a breakout session, we were given some valuable tools by Jess McIntosh when it comes to defending against disinformation. Jess guided us through building your message to support your values for your sex ed curriculum in the face of adversity.

I am feeling equipped with lots helpful resources and am thankful to the AMAZE team for organizing such an awesome event.

November 08, 2023

Save-the-Date! November 28th!

November 08, 2023/ Jill Herbertson

Make a plan to donate to MTSE as part of #GivingTuesday

We at More Than Sex-Ed enthusiastically plant the seeds that start conversations about sexuality. We work in partnership with young people and the adults who support them in order to nurture a healthy start in which relationships can grow and thrive.

When we started in 2015, we were a small organization providing sex education for youngsters in just a few middle schools, and that effort has now bloomed with programming in over 45 schools in pre-K through12th grade!

We are grateful for your support in our growth.

Our impact has been unmistakable and the numbers speak for themselves.

#GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement, unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world.

October 11, 2023

Talk With Your Kids Month: no one ever said it was easy…

October 11, 2023/ Jill Herbertson

October is “Talk with your kids” month, and we encourage you to consider the wide number of intersecting topics that affect our understanding of human sexuality, and how we communicate these complexities to our children.

In order to be comprehensive, sex education needs to cover many, many subjects, but we can’t do it all at once. And it’s okay to focus on one thing at a time. A focus is not an exclusion. Just because we might be thinking and learning about Intersex Awareness issues on Oct 26, for example, doesn’t mean we can’t make connections between intersex identities and what we know, or want to learn, about mental health, or periods, or vasectomies, or AIDS, or menopause.

read on for a list of awareness days in the month of October that could inspire a conversation:

January 11, 2023

Guest Blogger Sebastian Maldonado, B.S., Public Health--Internship Highlights

January 11, 2023/ Sebastian Maldonado

My name is Sebastian Maldonado and I am a departing intern at More Than Sex-Ed (MTSE). Thus far, I have loved my time here and have learned many invaluable lessons that will go beyond my time here. The ideology and culture at MTSE that I have picked up on is that every child deserves the opportunity to learn comprehensive sex ed that goes beyond the traditional meaning. MTSE's curriculum and facilitators make children feel that it is ok to have questions about themselves and others, while giving them an open discourse to voice these questions. These curricula also look to set up an open environment beyond the classrooms, such as at home. Talking to parents and caregivers and giving them access to expert facilitators is a great way to set up this kind of environment.

September 15, 2022

“How do we support our LGBTQIA+ students?”

September 15, 2022/ Jill Herbertson

We have been back to school and working with educators for a month now, and it’s so gratifying to serve our returning clients as well as students and staff on campuses that are brand new to us. But regardless of where our client schools are or how long we have been working with them, the biggest area of concern for staff and administrators is most often, “How do we support our LGBTQIA+ students?” A hugely important question, to be sure, when we have ample evidence that LGBTQIA+ youth are more likely to have suicidal thoughts or attempts, personal safety issues and lower academic achievement than their cisgender and heterosexual peers. We are delighted that Chris Angel Murphy (they/them) breaks it down for us.

September 08, 2021

MTSE Co-Founder Emmalinda MacLean Trains Sex-Ed Teachers for a New Texas Organization

September 08, 2021/ Emmalinda MacLean

I’ve been joking for years that my life’s mission is to raise an army of sex educators. Well, the joke is on Texas, because last month we started the Dallas branch. I couldn’t be prouder to support a like-minded startup taking flight in another city, and I am in deep admiration of the courage of the Texan sex-educators I met there.

If you’re wondering what qualifies a person to be a comprehensive sex-educator, or how we can teach someone to do it in a weekend, think about how people become parents. There’s a lot to know and to learn, it’s the work of a lifetime to get good at, but you don’t have to be perfect or know everything to be a great parent to a child who needs you.

April 07, 2021

9-12 Year Olds and “Performative Discomfort”

April 07, 2021/ Emmalinda MacLean

There’s a certain kind of behavior we sometimes see from preteens, especially when class is discussing body parts or functions, that we describe as “performative discomfort”. Kids this age will go out of their way to tell us that they find the material “gross”, they use the barfing-emoji, they tell us they’re disturbed, they ask why we have to talk about these matters before lunch. Sometimes they seem to be telegraphing to their peers that they consider this topic taboo or off limits. We understand—and we remind students—that discomfort is a natural and very understandable part of the learning and growth process.

March 03, 2021

Brave New World: The Perks of Virtual Sex Ed

March 03, 2021/ Emmalinda MacLean

I trust that by now we’re all pretty familiar with the frustrations and drawbacks of online education, and we join with parents and students in hoping to be back in classrooms in person as soon as it’s safe to do so. But the more virtual sex-ed classes we present, the more we’ve noticed certain unmistakable advantages to the remote model too—and we hope to be able to re-create some of these benefits in a post-pandemic future.

March 02, 2021

Destigmatizing Pleasure to Dismantle Sexual Shame

March 02, 2021/ Jill Herbertson

Even as a very young child, I was aware of the stigma and taboo surrounding the subject of sex. Society’s discomfort with sex was apparent in the hushed tones people tended to use when speaking of it; it was apparent in the flustered demeanor my parents adopted when I would ask a question about a line in a movie, or a song; and it was apparent in the fact that, when I was 10 years old, my mom took me out of the house (“an outing, just the two of us”) in order to have “the talk” in private.

February 06, 2019

Why YOU need Sexual Health Education Training!→

February 06, 2019/ Emmalinda MacLean

Our culture is flooded with messages about sex, bodies, gender roles, relationships, and power: children are absorbing them from an early age. Without a trusted source of accurate information, these messages become many people’s only sex education. What messages are your clients receiving? Which ones are you sending?

October 10, 2018

More Than Sex-Ed in Schools Across Los Angeles--MUSE School

October 10, 2018/ Jill Herbertson

Muse's philosophy of "Inspiring and Preparing Young People to Live Consciously with Themselves, One Another, and the Planet." instantly resonated with us when Suzanne McClure, Director of Middle/High School contacted MoreThanSex-Ed last winter.

October 10, 2018

More Than Sex-Ed in Schools Across Los Angeles—De Toledo High School

October 10, 2018/ Jill Herbertson

We are thrilled to work with a variety of schools!
They may be charter, pilot, or independent schools, but one consistent feature is that each has administrators and teachers who profoundly recognize the value of well facilitated conversations with students about personal relationships and sexual health.

Meet De Toledo High School in West Hills!

May 11, 2018

When Parents Don't See Eye-to-Eye About Sex-Ed

May 11, 2018/ J. Robin Darling

Co-parents don’t always agree on what is age appropriate for their child. This can be particularly delicate when the topic of age-appropriate sex education comes up. In my experience as a sex educator, the “how young is too young?” type of question is often the first question parents have about their children's sexual education.

January 12, 2018

Why are More Than Sex-Ed workshop series’ so long!?! Can’t kids learn what they need in a couple of hours?”

January 12, 2018/ Jill Herbertson

Let’s consider just how much of our life experience involves sexuality. What else consumes our thoughts the way that longing for intimacy and sexual fulfillment does? How preoccupied as adolescents are we with our sexual identity and worries about whether we are normal? How much of middle and high school is spent navigating the turbulence of attraction and relationships? And that’s only the segue into what we hope is lifelong healthy sexuality!

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