Healthy sexuality and…baseball?

A major component of work to prevent sexual and domestic violence is, of course, work to promote healthy sexuality.  This is where we start to address issues like comprehensive sexuality education and…baseball?  Well, we may not talk about baseball when discussing healthy sexuality, but anyone who has worked in sexuality education, with sexuality educators, or who has even heard a mainstream conversation about sexual activity, has likely heard that very popular metaphor.

Cara Corchesne from the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault recently shared an interesting video critiquing the baseball metaphor as our dominant cultural metaphor and offering an alternative that promotes a new vision of healthy sexuality.  In the video, speaker Al Vernacchio, a sexuality educator, argues that:

This baseball model is incredibly problematic. It’s sexist, it’s heterosexist, it’s competitive, it’s goal-directed, and it can’t result in healthy sexuality developing in young people or in adults.

Vernacchio then offers a much different metaphor.  Curious?  Watch the video here or below – you may be surprised.