About Your Sexuality
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About Your Sexuality, or AYS, was a sex education course published by the Unitarian Universalist Association between 1971 and 1997. The course materials were originally developed by Derek Calderwood. Although made available to other organizations, the materials were primarily used in courses taught to youth ages 12-14 (in mixed-gender groups) in Unitarian Universalist congregations.
AYS was unique among sex education course because it used visual materials that depicted human sexuality in a realistic and graphic fashion. For example, film strips used in the course showed images of real heterosexual and homosexual encounters. These images did not try to hide the genitals or the details of penetration. One of the more controversial film strips showed a man masturbating. The film strip concluded with images of the man ejaculating into his navel and then tasting his own semen. Other media used in the course of AYS included audio tapes of interviews with transgendered, homosexual, and heterosexual men and women speaking about their sexuality.
AYS was considered very controversial both at the time of its inception and in the mid 1990s when it was replaced by OWL. It was also featured in the book Harmful to Minors by Judith Levine as an example of complete sexual education.
The AYS course has since been replaced by a sexual education course called Our Whole Lives.
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