There is almost nothing as exciting as a well-organized conference “first.” I’ve been lucky enough to attend a few conference firsts in my life. I was at the first conference on queer disability, the first full-day workshop on computer-human sexual interaction, and last week, along with about 300 other people, I spent two blissful days at Sex: Tech, the first STD/HIV prevention conference focusing on youth and technology. If you’re like me -- a wannabe technophile sex educator geek -- it was a little bit of heaven at the JW Marriott.
From the first announcement about the conference, the organizers (led by my new not-for-profit crush Internet Sexuality Information Services) stressed that they wanted this conference to be about youth, but also for youth, and with youth. In addition to raising the rhetorical question of whom exactly we mean when we talk about “youth,” it was an organizing principle, and one that organizers tried their best to deliver on.
When I first sat down and looked around I knew I was in for something different.
There were clergy and sex workers, administrators and academics, sex therapists and educators, activists, service providers, writers, pornographers, and an assortment of people who primarily identified themselves as “parents” and “youths” (more on the scare quotes below). It also was a much more diverse group in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity than I’ve seen at almost any other sexual health conference I’ve been.
The vibe at Sex:Tech was like a group of people who were excited to finally get the chance to sit down and talk to each other about something they have been thinking about for quite some time.
The opening remarks elicited enthusiastic shouts from the audience, laughter, and a few tears (well those were just from one of the speakers, but they were sweet nonetheless). After opening comments from the organizers, the talented and silver-tongued Nikol Hasler of the Midwest Teen Sex Show spoke briefly about her own experiences with sex education and then introduced the finalists of the Fresh Focus Video contest. Below are some of the themes that I became aware of over the jam packed two days of workshops and panels, along with some of the questions that I was left with.
Finding an “Authentic” Youth Voice
Participants had different ideas on how much youth involvement was required, and at what points in the development and delivery of services these voices of youth were most needed or appropriate. In developing several HIV-prevention intervention computer games Marguerita Lightfoot included youth by recording their voices and leaving scripts open enough to change the language when it seemed like it would work. Audacia Ray offered a thoughtful comparison of two approaches to involving youth as moderators and participants on sexual health forums/discussion boards (Scarleteen and Teenwire.com).Some of the questions raised by these discussions include:
- Who exactly are we talking about when we talk about “youth” and what are the implications of homogenizing this diverse group?
- Can the highly successful model of person-to-person peer education for youth be useful in thinking about computer mediated models of sex education?
- What opportunities are there for service providers to step back and let youth create their own content while making sure spaces are safe for youth and information is accurate?
- When virtual spaces allow adults and youth to represent themselves however they like, what does this do to the concept of “authentic” youth voices?
- What role can or should for-profit companies be playing in supporting accurate sex education and STD prevention for their youth markets?
Struggle for Diversity
One of the great successes of this conference was its ability to attract a relatively diverse group of presenters and attendees. They were diverse both in the populations they served and to some extent among the attendees themselves. As a result, the idea of diversity was on the table at many of the workshops.There were interventions geared to street-involved youth, queer youth, trans youth and youth of color. Many of the presenters were aware that not all youth have the same access to technology and that we have to meet youth where they are if we want our interventions to work. Most presenters also did a good job of pointing out all the people who were being missed by their work, and acknowledging that to do something well you usually can’t do it for everyone. But I was surprised that there weren’t more open discussions about race and class during the workshops. I’m not sure why this didn’t happen since both topics felt to me like elephants in the room.
Some of the questions raised by these discussions include:
- Can you develop computer-mediated services for diverse communities or will online service provision simply replicate what happens off line (e.g. community and identity specific materials, lots of duplication, not enough collaboration)?
- If we’re stuck in the old model, is it possible for technology to allow us to translate materials from one population to another?
- In what ways can technology facilitate greater diversity not just in appearance, but in practice?
- How should we be thinking about diversity for youth who interact in virtual spaces where their online identity may be very different than their off line identity, yet no less meaningful to them?
