Latino Sexuality Links

A blog post is coming soon, I'm just super busy with the New York International Latino Film Festival this weekend. I have a press pass and am going to see three films:

Friday:
JUAN MELENDEZ - 6446 plays with
ESPERANDO MUJERES (WAITING FOR WOMEN)


Saturday:
DOS AMERICAS: THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NEW ORLEANS which plays with: BELOW THE FOLD and PURO DOMINICANO


Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the US Surgeon General under Clinton part 1 who got booted for saying we should talk to youth about masturbation as a form of safe sex (I LOVE her), has advice for the Surgeon General Nominee.

My homegirl Laura sent me this posting called "Hats off to beautiful femmes" by Ivan Coyote which has the quote:

I want to thank you for coming out of the closet. Again and again, over and over, for the rest of your life. At school, at work, at your kid’s daycare, at your brother’s wedding, at the doctor’s office. Thank you for sideswiping their stereotypes.

You can read more about the Las Vegas Porn Museum. Is it true about what stays in Vegas?

Here's my Los Amigos Invisibles review of their latest record: Commercial.

Finally, in my class today we are discussing performance, women's work, gender, race, class, ethnicity, and sex. What better than John Leguizamo's clip from his 1991 Mambo Mouth?

Lessons of Hate

Today I had a guest speaker from SIECUS, my homeboy Max, visit my class and students. He shared with us the work he does at SIECUS and showed this film to my class:


Lessons of Hate in the Bible Belt from Stuart Productions on Vimeo.


Have you heard of this issue? Debra Taylor has not been reinstated. One of the things you may notice from watching the video is that the students in the class are from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds. Max shared with us that when he spoke with Debra Taylor, she shared that a majority of the youth at the school are Latino, Native, and Black with a sprinkle of White students. Some of the fears among the students in the class who heard the superintendent say he "hated queers" were Latino and some are not documented and do not feel comfortable talking out against someone of his authority and power. I definitely understand that! I can't recall being a very vocal young person to such people in power at my school either.

If our youth have teachers who want to teach respect for all people, but school authorities are pulling the cord on such efforts, if organizations like GLSEN exist, but schools enforce web monitors that filter out sites that have certain words such as "gay," "lesbian," and "bisexual" so students cannot access these spaces, I can't help but wonder if our schools are perpetuating the death of our youth. Many have argued that schools are breeding grounds for incarceration, they can also be breeding grounds for murder, and with abstinence-only programming, as former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, MD states, a breeding ground for child abuse.