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Interview Transcript
Host: Hilary Frank Guest/Sex Educator: Shafia Zaloom
Hilary Frank (Host): Hey there, listeners. I've got a couple announcements for you this holiday season. First, we're offering a limited time discount on our special club, LST Plus, now through Christmas. Annual membership is usually 50 bucks, but right now you can get in for 40 bucks. When you're in the club, you get access to ad-free listening, our community, and exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up or give the gift of membership at longestshortesttime.com/club and use code YAYLST. That's Y-A-Y-L-S-T.
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Hilary Frank (Host): Shafiya Zaloom has three kids, two in their early 20s. The youngest is 15. One day when they were little, Shafia took them to the grocery store, and as they waited in line to pay, they passed the magazine rack.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): And there was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit magazine cover, and the model on the front was in a bathing suit and had her thumb hooked on her bikini bottom side string and had pulled it down enough that you could tell her pubic hair had been shaved or removed in some way. And one of my kids was like, "Mom, how come she has no pubic hair? She looks like a kid."
Hilary Frank (Host): What did you say?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): I simply said, "Oh, you know, she chose to do that. Sometimes in magazines, they want to represent certain aspects of people's sexuality and capture people's attention."
Hilary Frank (Host): Now, years later, Shafia says she would handle that question differently.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Now I just want to engage in a conversation. "What do you think about that? We talk about bodily autonomy. How does this factor in? Do you know where removing the idea of removing body hair has come from and how it's perpetuated through pornography?" Like all those questions that I think are important to explore with your kid. I don't know that I would say a statement anymore, but get a better sense of what they've been exposed to, and then in an age-appropriate way, inquire as to what their thoughts are about it, drop a few little nuggets that would inspire a reflection, and move on.
Hilary Frank (Host): Shafiya spends most of her time inspiring teens to reflect on tricky sex questions. She's a sex educator in a high school, and she travels the country talking to teens and young adults about things like consent and pleasure and how to have healthy relationships. She's also an advisor on Big Mouth, the amazing animated Netflix show about the humor and horrors of puberty. This is The Longest, Shortest Time. I'm Hilary Frank. You may have heard Shafia on the show a couple weeks ago in the pilot episode for a longest, shortest spin-off I want to make called You Know What. If you haven't heard that yet, go check it out. It's a sex advice show for young people, and Shafia was our guest sexpert. Today, Shafia is back to tell us more about her creative and playful approach to sex ed, which involves games and music and lots and lots of thought-provoking questions.
Shafia's Playful Approach: Sex Bingo and the Relationship Lifeline
Hilary Frank (Host): Can you talk about how you work with kids? Because I think your approach is pretty unique. What is your process step by step?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): We open with Sex Bingo.
Hilary Frank (Host): Sex Bingo, what? Sex Bingo, yes.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): So I put on music. You can imagine a little, you know, Salt-N-Pepa, "Hot, Cool & Vicious," "Let's Talk About Sex, Baby." So music always sets kids at ease. And I hand out bingo cards. And on the cards are, you know, "Find someone who knows the difference between a clitoris and a vagina," or, you know, puberty education kind of things. And then I'll throw in a couple of things that everyone can answer. I'll throw in a couple things that maybe a kid who's had some pretty comprehensive sexuality education may know, but most won't. And some of them, I throw in some zingers, like "How many sperm are in a teaspoon of ejaculate?" And that's a question so many kids are curious about that I've been asked. So a lot of the things that I put on there also come from when I do puberty education in middle schools, what the questions are. And they have to get blackout on the card. So they have to go around and find other kids who know the answers to those questions and get their initials in the box.
Hilary Frank (Host): Oh wow. So you get them like communicating with each other right away.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Yes. So the kid who claims bingo, then we'll get to say who the initials are in each one. And those kids answer the question for the class.
Hilary Frank (Host): So what comes after sex bingo?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): I organize the class to follow the lifeline of a romantic relationship.
The first week is sexuality and self, because we need to have a certain level of self-awareness before we can even consider being romantically interested in or connecting with someone else. We're talking about friendships, we're talking about familial relationships, because all those values and qualities that exist in those relationships that they are already deeply steeped in are going to carry over into romantic and or sexual relationships for when that time comes for them, if ever, right? So we really talk about the self first. We talk about sexual identity. We talk about gender, what it means to them, you know, in terms of the gender spectrum, how they identify themselves and what that means to them, the stereotypes, the expectations that are out there based on gender, things like that. We do sexual reproductive anatomy. These are all things that are pretty straightforward and information-based.
Then week two is initiating a relationship. Like how do you ask someone out on a date? And that's really interesting too, because a lot of times kids, I get those responses like, "Oh, you know, whatever," you know, kind of thing. And I launch into this thing like, "No, this is not the Snapchat algorithm for how to hook up," and their eyes get really big. Like, "How does she know this?" Right? And they're laughing and they can't, there's giggles and stuff. And I'll say, but here's the thing. And what's actually going to serve you is your ability to initiate a relationship. Because what we know is that the context in which you do that, how you do that, not just what you do, but how you do that will set the tone for your relationships. And it's all practice. And ultimately it's going to, you're looking to initiate some real-time joy in how you're connecting with someone else.
Hilary Frank (Host): So then what's the next step of the class?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): So then, we talk about the basics after initiating a relationship. So ethical growth, right? So we talk about consent. I do this whole piece on what's "legal, ethical, and good" in quotation marks, because there's what's legal. So that's consent. But legal is important. It upholds the fundamentals of human dignity, and it's what makes sexual activity legal, which is important, but it's a pretty low bar for a positive, pleasurable experience. And when I talk about sexual experiences in this conversation, and I say this to the kids, I'm talking about a broader definition. Most people default to how they've been socialized to think about genital to genital intercourse between two, a man and a woman in a heteronormative context, like I'm talking about a much broader definition. And then we talk about safe sexuality practices and things like that. And then we move into decision making, when things get tough, when they get difficult, effective communication, authentic connection, the difference between infatuation and authentic connection, all those things. And then we fall in love. We fall in love and then we break up.
Hilary Frank (Host): How do you talk about pleasure with them?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Well, everybody has a different definition of what brings them pleasure, right? Like there are a lot of different things that exist out there. And that's part of the structure of the legal ethical good, because yes means yes is something we aspire to, right? But you can have a consensual sexual experience that is disappointing. That's embarrassing. That feels like a waste of time. That's kind of meh. But we want to aspire to more than that, right? And ethical sexual activity actually takes into account the well-being of the people who are engaged in it. And that's a whole other thing, because you can have a consensual sexual experience also that leaves you with a sexually transmitted infection, that leaves you pregnant if you don't want to be, right? Like all those sort of things. And so we really sort of focus on this ethical piece of how do you cultivate that? How do you pace that?
Hilary Frank (Host): You are very committed to using the language that teens use when you're talking to them in classes. What are some of the terms that you've learned recently?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): There was a language going around gooning. And gooning is masturbation. It's pretty boy specific. And there were some memes surrounding it too. And I'd mentioned that in a crowd or, you know, ask it, be like, "What's that about?" And they just, you know, boys in particular would be cracking up. Body count, which is a way by which kids talk about the number of people and who they've hooked up with or been with. I always point out to them that in our culture, the only other time we use that language is during, mass shootings or war.
Hilary Frank (Host): What do they think about that?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): I get a lot of, "Oh, that's messed up." And I'm like, "Yeah, let's talk about that. Like, what is that about? How come it is so dehumanized? How come sexuality has become so dehumanized?" And I talk a lot about their brains, of course. And how they're developing and establishing patterns of behavior right now that will follow them into adulthood. And, we do little exercises around like, okay, so 10 to 15 years from now, how, what values would you want to characterize your relationships?
Hilary Frank (Host): Shafia says that in every class, for decades, kids have been naming the same values. They want relationships where there's connection, respect, safety, fun.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): And then the big question is, well, then how are you going to get there?
Practice Scenarios: Navigating Real-Time Situations
Hilary Frank (Host): Shafia's got a book called Sex, Teens, and Everything in Between that sets out to help teens answer this question. And she gives parents tools for how to help their kids navigate super complicated situations. When we come back, Shafia will walk us through some of those situations.
Hilary Frank (Host): One of my favorite things about your book is that you share these practice scenarios for readers so that they can think about what they would do in particular situations. So I thought we could do a version of that here.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Okay.
Hilary Frank (Host): So can you share some of the common scenarios that teens bring to you? And then we can talk about the strategies on how a person could manage them.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): I'll start first with sort of friendship dynamics and this whole notion that in friendship groups, someone is, interested in someone else. And they talk to their friends about it. There's all this friend sourcing that's going on, right? And the friends are weighing in, "You should go for it, you know, you should do this, you should say that." And they start talking in digital spaces. So sometimes like a typical Snapchat algorithm to hook up might go something like this. "Hey, what are you doing?" Right? Like WYD. And there's all these abbreviations. They're literally abbreviating the relationships, right? "Nothing, what about you?" Down to HU, which would be hookup, right? And the image that goes along with it... it's sort of like the half profile. There's this jaw shot. There's this thing mewing that now, guys, that's a term will do where it makes their jawline look extra pronounced. It could be an ab shot. It could be like a shoulder in the mirror with a bra strap. Like there's all these these things in the digital space that signal intention, right? And there may be some friend sourcing going on, "Oh, look what I got, what do you think this means? Like, how long should I wait and leave them on read?" You know, all this stuff that they do. And then, "You're going to so-and-so's on Saturday night," "Yeah, see you there." And then they tell their friends and the other kid tells their friends and then they show up at the party and the friends are like, "Oh, look, they're over there." And the other friends are like, "Oh, over there." And they'll be sitting around and there may be some partying that's going on. And a lot of the kids I talk to feel like they are obligated if they have engaged in a digital exchange and said they were down to hook up to then do that in person. And that's actually a non-consensual concept. Like consent has to happen in real time. You know, consent does not happen through digital devices, and it can be revoked at any time. You have the right to change your mind. Like kids need to know that, but that's very difficult to do in a lot of social landscapes.
Scenario Example: You have a girl, she's been partying, she's with her friend, and then there's a couple boys and the one that she's been talking to in quotes, right, shows up and is like, "Hey, you want to go for a walk, sober up a bit?" Like that's a little cue, like let's go find a space on our own. And she says something like, "Nah, I'm good. Just going to hang here for a while," which is code for, I've decided this is actually not what I want to do. I'm not feeling up to it in this real time right now. But her friend is like, "Go, have some fun, go with him." And the friend thinks she's really supporting her friend because she's wanted this guy, she likes him, the whole thing. And the girl's like, "Go, go with him." And she's like, "No, I'm good." But then in that moment, feels like she has to then go.
Hilary Frank (Host): Right.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): But then they go walking off and the friend has also brokered and talked to the other other kids' friends. And she's like, "He likes her, right?" And the other kid's like, "Yeah, he likes her for tonight."
Hilary Frank (Host): Oh, wow.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): So, right, like this is a situation that's really important to talk about. So what do you do in that moment? What's going on? What are the power dynamics? What are the possibilities of what could be happening? What could shift the dynamic? What do you do now, right? What could have happened differently?
Hilary Frank (Host): So wait, who's in the dilemma here? Is it the person who is feeling forced to hook up with someone or is it the friend who pushed her?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Well, I mean, I would ask my students, I would say, "Okay, who are we talking about first," right? Like, and first we talk about context. So there's a process by which we deconstruct a scenario. So I'll say, "Okay, where are the social power dynamics?" So we have to look first and foremost, the kids are gonna say, "Okay, whose house are you at? Are your friends there? Who's been drinking? Who's, you know, incapacitated or not? Is there an age difference? Is there a popularity difference?" You know, in some of those scenarios, you can get a kid who clears a room so that they can have the room with someone else that they're interested in hooking up with, right? So social status makes a big, huge difference. Experience, what do we know about these characters? And then we play around it with it a little bit. "What if she's really inexperienced? What if she has more experience? What if there's someone from a different school? What if it's someone from the same school?" Like you're really just trying to engage the, you know, students in thinking critically about what's happening and the different mini decisions and the different things that happen in the course of an evening and how those then lead up to where you are, and then what your rights and responsibilities are in that moment.
The Green/Yellow/Red Emoji Exercise: Sometimes I do this thing where I have a green emoji with a :), a yellow emoji with a flat, you know, mouth, and a red emoji with a sort of, you know, kind of face. And they're laminated. And during the course of the scenario, the kids have to put up in a small group if it's green, yellow, or red.
Hilary Frank (Host): Do people ever disagree?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): All the time. And that's the point, right? Because people make assumptions. This is why kids need to be able to communicate and helps them understand how come a party context or any sort of social power dynamic can create vulnerability, create risk, and levels of risk. And levels of risk are so important to talk about because they know that sometimes when people party and hook up, they're okay. But sometimes when people party and hook up, they're not. And what they want to understand is what makes the difference. Because kids talk about how it goes from green to red really quickly. So we pause and stay in yellow. And we're like, "Okay, let's talk about yellow. What is going on in yellow? What are all the options?" We want people to have all kinds of options, all kinds of tools, all kinds of ways to switch up the dynamic, advocate for themselves, or get out.
Hilary Frank (Host): Can you give me some examples? Like what are some options for the girl in this scenario?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Refusal skills are incredibly important, and it's not just the proverbial "no." Right? "No" is important, but it's the hammer. Kids need surgical tools. They need ways to save face. They need things that actually feel doable. So there's levels. "No," "stop," right? Or, "Wait. I don't feel comfortable," or "Let's go back to..." or "No, but I liked this," because a lot of times kids think of it in terms of black and white, which is how adults a lot of the time present it, right? It's either or, if you say no, the whole thing's gonna stop, even if you want it to be going on, but you're not into this one thing that's just been initiated, you know, whatever. If someone isn't listening to you and they aren't respecting your right to consent... What we know from the research is the majority of people who actually cause sexual harm do not think that is what they're doing in the moment, especially in a school context, like a college context. So bring it to their attention. "If you continue, you will be harming me. If you continue, you will be assaulting me. If you continue, you will be raping me." It's not a guarantee. It's not the panacea, but I've had some students who have said it was really helpful to have that in my back pocket.
Hilary Frank (Host): And then what about for the friend?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): She can lie. And because she is honoring a higher truth, right? Because kids be like, "Well, we just talked all about honesty and how that's important. And you're saying she could lie?" Yeah, because there's a higher truth, right? This is the ethics of things and why it's so important to talk about ethical situations when it comes to relationships and especially when risk might be involved. She can sit there and then say, "Oh, you know what?" And then go find her friend and say, "Hey, there's drama in the bathroom. You know, Luis is really is looking for you and we got to go help her." There's some serious, you know, something serious is going down. Something, some drama. Or "Cops were just called, police are coming, we're getting out of here. There was a noise ordinance." Or totally forgot, "So-and-so, who's your designated driver, just told me we got to leave early, someone's curfew or their parent is freaking out." And as a parent, I always had a code word with my kid that they could drop in a moment too. And you drop the code word and you sail in and "I can't believe you're here. Why are you here? I told you to come home 30 minutes ago." And you pull them into the car and they're like, "Oh, thanks. That was way over my head."
Hilary Frank (Host): Yeah, so I did this book, Weird Parenting Wins, where listeners sent their like unusual parenting strategies for the book. And one of my favorites is the secret family emoji. Like you pick a weird emoji that if they text it to you, then you do the thing and you say like, "You have to come home right now." And you play the bad guy.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Yes. And with my older kids, it was, you know, it was still kind of old school. It was our dog at the time. And if my daughter had to call, it was, you know, "Oh, I forgot to, I forgot to feed Daisy." So those kind of things are super important to have.
Hilary Frank (Host): Can you give a scenario that's from more of a typical male perspective?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): So I think there's a lot of performance pressure on guys, and I'll give you 2 examples.
Scenario 1: Queer Questioning: Let's say there's two boys and they like each other. And one is older and has more experience. Not too much older, but definitely out, gets a lot of positive affirmation from his community and family. Another kid who goes to a different school who is questioning and not really sure, but is assumed straight. And the two of them have been hanging out and they're really connecting and they've sort of developed this friendship, but there's a little bit of a vibe there that feels like it could be something. And they're hanging out and things are kind of cuddly and intimate. And the older kid brings up something like, "Have you ever thought of us as more than friends?" And the other kid says, "Well, do you think I'm gay?"
Shafia's Analysis: In this scenario, lots of students would, because there's a social power dynamic, right, that you have one kid who's more experienced, one kid who's out, one kid who has affirmation, that they have more power in the relationship, that automatically, if there's a social power dynamic, it'll be leveraged to create some form of harm or manipulation. And that is actually not true. It's what you do with it that matters.
The Healthy Response: In that moment then, that kid with more experience says, "Only that," right? "And I know it can be hard, and I'm here to support you in any way." And they just keep watching some TV, but that creates space and allows the other kid then can initiate some intimacy, right? And these are good examples too, because kids think consent is some weird formal interview or something. And it's not. Just like every context, there's a language, there's a tone, there's a way by which you do it. There's an intimate moment when two foreheads touch and there's a whisper between two people that's heard loud and clear, right? Which is, "Is this okay?" right? And then the person who has less experience gets to initiate and lift their chin up so they kiss. And then the other kid can say, "How do you want this to go? How do you want to be? What are you comfortable with?" So they've actually then leveled their experience in a way to create trust and safety.
Scenario 2: Erectile Dysfunction and Pressure: So the other one would be like a kid, so in a cis-het situation where he's feeling a lot of erectile dysfunction. They have a girlfriend who's, you know, assertive and really into it and maybe starts talking dirty. You know, there's this whole concept of being sexually adventurous and not being vanilla shamed and all these sort of things like that go along with this sort of stuff. So there's a lot of sort of performance, comparative culture and anxiety that can surround some of this for some kids. And she starts talking dirty and he loses his erection and she wants to have sex and he's having a hard time. And then it's, in some scenarios, he'll say like, "It's not you, it's me. I'm so sorry. I don't know what's going on," right? And I've heard of situations where girls then say like, "I know it's not me." Oh, yeah.
Hilary Frank (Host): So what would be a healthy outcome from the scenario you just put out there?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): I think a conversation which takes courage, right? And it takes skill and maybe some practice, where that kid can actually rehearse. I mean, in an ideal world, his partner is going to reflect upon that, realize that she was harsh and come back and apologize and say, "How can we do this together? And what are you into?" And just focus on some pleasurable aspects of things to take, you know, the focus off him and his performance.
Parenting Wins and the Power of the Do-Over
Hilary Frank (Host): You're an expert in sexuality education when it comes to your own kids. Can you talk about a time when you didn't know what to do?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Oh my gosh, there's so many. Can you imagine being my kids? To have a mom who teaches sex positive sex ed to all your friends at the high school you go to, I know way too much about what's out there and what can happen. I also have the ways I teach things and they don't want to be my teachable moment, right? I have to have boundaries around, you know, they're great resources for me as are their friends. And I need to be really careful around the consent around that in particular and how I access resources and stories. And certainly it's through my students. But when I've got kids going on and something's right in my face, I'm like, "Wait, tell me about that." And so it's been a journey, and it's been really hard, and I have to take deep breaths, and I have to do a lot of do-overs. And sometimes we broker deals, like, "Okay, if you let me watch this, I'll let you talk to me about it."
Hilary Frank (Host): Like if you let them watch some TV show or something? Yeah, literally, that happens. What did you let them watch?
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Euphoria, Sex Education, Hunting Wives, Hunting Wives. Oh, I know, like talk about explicit. I was like, "Whoa." Beef.
Hilary Frank (Host): So you let them watch one of these things and then they give you what in return.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): That they're like, "I'll deconstruct it for you."
Hilary Frank (Host): Like in teen speak.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Yeah, or, "I'll give you 2 minutes." Or, "Well, it can't be the whole thing. That's not, that's not even balanced. There's no reciprocity there. It'd have to be like per episode or a particular scene. Or like the Twilight series and the virginity scene, things like that." I'm thinking back a little bit.
Hilary Frank (Host): I also think the do-over that you mentioned is so important.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): Oh, it's huge.
Hilary Frank (Host): But like we mess up and it's good to know that that's like, that's not the be all and end all. Like you get to go at it again and say what you want to say.
Shafia Zaloom (Guest): And I just learned something from my oldest daughter, which was so important. And it was a reminder. And she said, "Mom, when we come to you with something, when something comes up, you always want to like deconstruct it. And there's all this depth to it and whatever else. And she's like, sometimes all you got to do is just say, 'I'm sorry.'" And apologize to us if you feel like you messed up. And so that's been what I've been working on recently, is instead of trying to, analyze something or go into my do-over and what I wanted to say or whatever as else, is to just go in and just be like, "I am so sorry. This is what I did and this is how I'm going to try to do better." And that has gone a really long way.
Hilary Frank (Host): Shafiya's got so many more practice scenarios up her sleeve in her book, actually. It's called Sex, Teens, and Everything in Between. And I highly recommend checking it out and sharing it with a teen in your life. We've got a link in the show notes and at our website, longestshortesttime.com.