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The Cougar Press Friday, March 2, 2018
Volume 70 Edition 08
“Answering questions is a major part of sexual education.” -Bertrand Russell
Sexual education: not widely talked about, but should it be? According to “Renew
comprehensive sex ed. We are not
the U.S. commitment to sexual
doing condom demonstrations.
education,” from The Washington
We are not teaching young
According to a report
Post, “Congress increased to
people about consent... We are
released by the U.S. Center for
75 million a year funding for
making them feel bad about their
Disease Control and Prevention,
programs that promote abstinence
bodies…”
fewer than 50 percent of high
until marriage.” The article goes
schools,
and only a fifth of
on to emphasize that this does not
High School, who wished to
middle schools, taught all 16
give students in their adolescence
remain anonymous, shared, “I
nationally recommended lessons
all the information they need to
learned a great majority from
on topics for sexual health
make their own decisions when
the internet, some from my
education. In addition to this, less
it comes to becoming sexually
mom, and a very slim amount
than 40 percent of high schools
active or not.
from school which was mostly
nationwide require sex and health
Lynn Barclay, President
just STD and STI information.”
education for graduation.
and CEO of the American Sexual
When asked how old they were
Health
declared
when they were taught about sex,
22 states in the U.S. mandate
in an interview with Rachel
the student said, “I learned about
sexual education and only 13
Sanoff from bustle.com, “We
sex [when I was] very young.”
states require that the instruction
are doing such a poor job on so
be medically accurate.
many subjects. We are not doing
Sailor Hawes Ryan King
Illustration by: Avenlea Russian
More specifically, only
Association,
A student from Ventura
continued on ... page 5
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Gays in my Community? It’s more likely than students think Alijca Fowler Kai Torres
Rainbow Umbrella takes place every Friday at the Community Resource Center off of Portola Road in Ventura, CA. Project Pride meets every Wednesday from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Ventura High School also has their own Gender Sexuality Alliance club on campus that has an abundance of resources for other LGBTQ+ students. The club is run by senior co-presidents, Terra Bransfield and Maritza Duran. When asked about GSA, Duran said, “We’re a place where anyone can come in and feel safe about their gender and sexuality. We’re open to anyone and everyone.” GSA meets every Friday in room 124 during lunch. Any VHS students that are interested can attend. These resources are an important part of both the local and school community, but not many people know about them. Hopefully this gives everyone an opportunity to check them out if they are at all interested and need any help or have any questions.
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The LGBTQ+ community has many places in Ventura County where people can hang out and access resources, including the Diversity Collective (DCVC). DCVC is a collection of therapists and suppor t g roups for LGBTQ+ youth. One of these g roups is Rainbow Umbrella. Rainbow Umbrella takes place ever y Friday at the Community Resource Center off of Por tola Road in Ventura, CA. Another resource for LGBTQ+ youth is Project Pride, which is based in Fillmore. This g roup primarily ser ves communities in the Santa Clara Valley, including Fillmore and Pir u.
Fillmore High School senior, Marlen Barragan, is one of the heads of Project Pride . She said, “I made Project Pride so students had a safe place outside of the [Fillmore High] school [Social Equality] club. Project Pride is not only based off of LGBTQ+ issues, but is also involved with One Billion Rising.”
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