MariaTalks.com, a website created for the purpose of educating Massachusetts teens about sex, pregnancy and relationships, has garnered statewide criticism for its informal approach to such sensitive subjects. The website, which receives $100,000 yearly from the state Department of Public Health, faces a possible funding cut, attributable to some members of the Legislature deeming it “disgusting.” While most sexual education programs in schools tend to err on the side of clinical, Maria Talks features fictional teens speaking conversationally about sex, using slang and colloquialism to create a comfortable, non-isolating forum for curious teens to explore. Eighteen-year-old Maria, along with her school friends, discuss matters of sexuality, sexual health and abstinence and other alternative options, all of which is anchored by “Aunt Lucia,” an OB/GYN who delivers the medical facts.
The fact of the matter is, most young adults get information about sex from their peers, using a particular dialect that not even the “coolest” sex ed teacher could aptly reproduce. There is an organic nature to MariaTalks.com that, while sometimes coming off a bit contrived, handles the subject of sex in a way that makes it not delicate, scientific nor prohibitory, which is just the way, for better or for worse, today’s teens treat the subject. Today, sex is sex, and MariaTalks manages to emanate that frankness, while still covering all the bases intelligently, from anal sex to abstinence.
Stripping funding from this progressive initiative is simply nonsensical, because it means disrupting a viable dialogue that engages teens in a way in which they’re more likely participate. It’s a simple tweak to the sexual education model that public schools have been implementing for years. Considering the state Health and Human Services budget for the 2011 fiscal year is more than $15 million, a paltry $100,000 allocated to a website that covers sexual health for teens in an objective, comprehensive manner is a small price to pay if it means reaching even a handful more teens.
The most contentious aspect of this issue is that critics of MariaTalks are likely riding the wave of the Planned Parenthood controversy, bringing large-scale national politics into a separate sphere in which such politics do not belong. MariaTalks is not a pro-life website, nor is it pornographic or overly sexually explicit. It is the same sex ed young people have always had, but with a more candid bend that’s an experiment worth trying. The legislature is arguing an argument not worth having, and throwing a roadblock into the trajectory of a fresher, more liberal mode of sexual education that is long overdue.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
