Goals

Each OWL age level curriculum has the central goal of helping participants gain the knowledge, values, and skills to lead sexually healthy, responsible lives. Always striving to be positive and comprehensive, this entails different supplementary goals for each age group. The goals OWL for grades 7–9 has are for participants to:

• affirm and respect themselves as sexual persons (including their bodies, sexual orientation, feelings, etc.) and respect the sexuality of others
• increase comfort and skills for discussing and negotiating sexuality issues with peers, romantic partners, and people of other generations
• explore, develop, and articulate values, attitudes, and feelings about their own sexuality and the sexuality of others
• identify and live according to their values
• increase motivation and skills for developing a just sexual morality that rejects double standards, stereotypes, biases, exploitation, dishonesty, and harassment
• acquire knowledge and skills for developing and maintaining romantic and/or sexual relationships that are consensual, mutually pleasurable, nonexploitative, safe, and based on respect, mutual expectations, and caring
• increase knowledge and skills for avoiding unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections
• express and enjoy sexuality in healthy and responsible ways at each stage of their development
• assess the impact of messages from family, culture, religion, media, and society on sexual thoughts, feelings, values, and behaviors

Assumptions

These goals rest upon the following assumptions:

• Human beings begin developing genitals and reproductive organs in utero and must continue caring for them throughout their lives.
• Sexuality is a good part of the human experience.
• Sexuality includes much more than sexual behavior. It also include physical changes, gender identity, feelings and thoughts about bodies, relationships, and social interactions.
• Sexuality affects human beings throughout their lifespan.
• It is natural to express sexual feelings in a variety of ways.
• People engage in health sexual behavior for a variety of reasons, including to expresss caring and love, to experience intimacy and connection with another, to share pleasure, to bring new life into the world, and to have fun and relax.
• Sexuality in our society is damaged by violence, exploitation, alienation, dishonesty, abuse of power, and the treatment of persons as objects.
• It is healthier for young teens to postpone partnered sexual activity that could lead to unintended physical or emotional health outcomes.

Rights

Finally, the core rights of participants have to achieve these goals in OWL are that youth have the right to:

• ask any questions they have about sexuality
• receive full and accurate information about sexuality
• gain the knowledge and values needed to make decisions about sexual matters
• express their sexuality in ways that are healthy and life affirming
• be treated with respect by facilitators and other participants in the group