Cognitive Linguistics: The War of Words
5.20.2009 | Blog, Sex in the Media
What are the words and phrases that people use when talking about teens and sex?
Alyssa Wulf, a linguist and co-founder of Real Reason, presented a provocative final plenary at the AASECT conference last week. (AASECT is a professional association of sexuality educators, counselors and therapists.)
She began by showing how we use conceptual metaphors to make mental shortcuts, such as describing “ideas” with references to “food”:
- Half-baked idea
- Digest information
- Chew on a thought
She then explained how she investigated why people don’t push for Comprehensive Sex Ed, since most people say they want it in our schools. What’s the disconnect? Why don’t parents and community members vote for it, fight for it, and advocate more for it?
Alyssa and her colleagues evaluated speeches, curricula, political cartoons, pamphlets, etc about teenage sexuality and found that the two most common conceptual metaphors were sex as “contaminant” and sex as “opponent.” (See the image above for some examples, though you can probably think of many more.) Even sex-positive sources often refer to sex with words like: “risk,” “threat,” “consequences,” “protect from,” “avoid,” “arm with information,” etc.
Opponent…
Contaminant…
Threat…
These metaphors are scary, so it makes perfect sense that parents react emotionally and feel the need to protect their kids from sex.
Is there another way?
Yes, there is. Alyssa and her team suggest that we talk about sex in way that people relate to – sex as “personality”:
- An ever-present part of every person
- Stable, yet evolves and changes over time
- Crucial to one’s identity and self-hood
- A venue for reaching our potential
If we can commit to talking about sex in this way, we can move past the war of words and find a place of common ground.
5.21.2009
I’ve always been open about sex and sexuality with my kids, so it was pretty shocking to have my daughter go full nuclear meltdown the other day when she thought she might have an STD.
“Did you actually have any exposure to this?” I asked, trying to calm her down.
“I don’t know. No, I didn’t. I don’t think so.”
Turns out it was just a normal stress-related rash, but she was in a panic because she’s been studying STDs in school and thought she had somehow contracted something, anything horrible.
A day later we could laugh about it, and I’m grateful that she knew she could talk to me about her fears. I just wish the school system could be more supportive and open about asking questions, not just teaching fear of disease, rape and pregnancy.
5.21.2009
“She then explained how she investigated why people don’t push for Comprehensive Sex Ed, since most people say they want it in our schools.”
They do? Most? Really? One would certainly never get that impression from anecdotal input. Is there data for this?
5.21.2009
This goes back to what exactly I mean when I say “abstinence-only” vs “comprehensive.” While most parents and concerned adults believe that abstinence is optimal, they also realize that kids need to know about contraception and other subjects not addressed thoroughly (if at all) in programs that stress abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM). This is my point — it’s the words we use that confuse and divide people.
For more of my thoughts on this, see my previous post: Choices in Sex Ed
5.21.2009
Here is a link about community and parent support for Comprehensive Sex Ed:
http://www.communityactionkit.org/index.cfm?pageId=890
I also added an image into the post to show one survey’s results.
5.22.2009
Fascinating post and I agree, language is so so important. I don’t think we can go far enough in reflecting on how poor the language we use in this whole area is.
I’m not American but I am interested in how in the US it is described as “sex ed.” In the UK the school subject is “Sex and Relationships Education” (better, in Ireland, where I work, it is “Relationships and Sexuality Education” (better again).
For the education to be truly “comprehensive” it must be holistic and therefore cannot be reduced to being just about “sex” but about everything in our complex, mystical and diverse “sexuality”.
I suppose you could say “comprehensive sex ed” is an oxymoron.
As a Christian I came to the realisation a number of years ago that belieiving in the God of the “Yes” and “Amen” and yet summing up one’s value system on sex with a negative word (abstinence) was ridiculous. I have also dropped “losing your virginity” as if first time sex is automatically (irrespective of context) a negative act in which something is lost rather than something gained.
5.24.2009
Very good points, thank you for sharing. But did the presenter have any suggestions for new words & language to use? Or was that an exercise left to the student?
5.24.2009
She (and her team) are the ones suggesting we use “personality” as the new concept for talking about sexuality, especially sexuality education. I see now that I didn’t make that clear in my blog post (I will try to remedy that).