124. Tackling Taboos: What Sex Ed and Financial Ed Have in Common with Danielle Bezalel
Nov 7, 2023
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Tori Dunlap invites fellow podcast host and sex educator Danielle Bezalel to discuss the shame surrounding sex and money. They explore topics like women's shame about pleasure, discrimination in healthcare, societal taboos around money and sex, teaching consent and empowering boundaries, misinformation in sexual health, and embracing pleasure and self-acceptance.
Shame surrounding pleasure unites different aspects of women's lives, including their bodies, relationships, and money.
Comprehensive sex education is necessary to address the financial repercussions of inadequate education and combat the stigma surrounding sexual health.
Open conversations about STIs, including their prevalence and prevention, are crucial to address the potential serious consequences, such as cervical cancer and other health issues.
Deep dives
The Shame Around Pleasure
The speaker discusses how women often feel shame surrounding pleasure, whether it's related to their bodies, relationships, or money. The overall theme is that shame unites these different areas of life.
The Importance of Comprehensive Sex Education
The podcast episode emphasizes the need for comprehensive, medically accurate sex education. It highlights the financial repercussions of inadequate sex education, including the costs of STIs and unplanned pregnancies. It also addresses the stigma and biases surrounding sexual health, particularly female pleasure.
Breaking Stigmas and Taboos
The episode delves into the restrictive environment and shadow banning that sexual health educators often face, particularly on social media platforms. It discusses the importance of normalizing conversations around sex toys and female pleasure, combating the myths and stereotypes perpetuated by mainstream media, and promoting a healthier, more empowering understanding of sex and pleasure.
STI Diagnosis: The Silent Symptom
STIs often present with no symptoms, making it possible for individuals to unknowingly have them. It is crucial to normalize conversations about STIs, treating them as common as a cold, and taking appropriate actions to prevent transmission. For instance, oral herpes, which affects 50 to 80% of Americans, is just one type of STI that can go unnoticed. Lack of awareness and limited testing options, like HPV testing for men, contribute to the prevalence of STIs. Communicating openly with partners, prioritizing regular testing, and considering preventive measures such as HPV vaccination can help address the potential serious consequences of STIs, like cervical cancer.
Navigating Consent: From 'No Means No' to 'Yes Means Yes'
The conversation around consent has evolved from the 'no means no' approach to emphasizing the importance of enthusiastic and affirmative consent ('yes means yes'). Teaching consent goes beyond defining consent as a simple affirmation; it involves addressing body language cues, understanding grey areas, and exploring the nuances of rejection. By practicing and role-playing different scenarios, individuals can develop the skills to navigate interactions that deviate from the expected 'yes' response. Consent education should also consider diverse relationship dynamics and acknowledge that consent may vary depending on the context. Empowering individuals to set boundaries and respecting those boundaries, even at the expense of a man's ego, is crucial. It is essential to challenge societal narratives that perpetuate the idea that women must prioritize male comfort over their own desires.
Let’s talk about sex, shall we? Buckle up your seatbelts because, in this episode of the Financial Feminist, we're getting real about two of the juiciest topics out there: sex and money. Host Tori Dunlap welcomes fellow podcast host and sex educator Danielle Bezalel to blow the lid off the societal stigmas that make us blush. From sexual education to the demonization of female pleasure, and how it connects to money…they’re not holding anything back! Together, they explore how societal norms seek to control, silence, and suppress us and how embracing sexuality and chasing financial dreams can go hand in hand. You might want to put your earbuds in for this one.
