Shelby Knox first gained notoriety in 2005, after the release of the award-winning The Education of Shelby Knox, a documentary chronicling Knox’s fight for comprehensive sex education and gay rights in her small, conservative Baptist town of Lubbock, Texas. Currently, she is touring around campuses and organizations, discussing sex education and youth activism, and last night I, along with several other authors from ShoutOut, had the opportunity to attend Shelby Knox’s presentation here at JMU.
Growing up, Knox was raised in a conservative Southern Baptist community. As a teen, she took a virginity vow, pledging to remain a virgin until marriage in front of her friends, her family, and her God. Under the guidance of Pastor Ed Ainsworth, Shelby and her peers were told that sex before marriage was dirty and immoral, and would only lead to them getting hurt “physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially”. Furthermore, they were given inaccurate information about sexually transmitted infections and the effectiveness of condoms. Sadly, the misinformation she received is not uncommon: in fact, about one in four teens receive abstinence-only sex education, and one in three teens reported not receiving any information about contraception before their first sexual encounter.
However, Knox’s “education” came into conflict with her life experiences when one of her friends got pregnant because false information led her to believe that you couldn’t get pregnant your first time having sex. This event provided Knox with a moment she describes as a “click”: how could her friend have known you could get pregnant your first time having sex when no one was willing to teach her? After all, no one is born knowing the ins and outs (ha!) of sex and sexuality. So after joining Lubbock’s Youth Commission, Knox and her committee members began campaigning to get comprehensive sex-education brought into the schools, and she has been identified as a renowned feminist activist ever since.
However, the presentation I attended last night was much more than Shelby Knox simply telling her story (which you can watch here online). She also addressed the fact that the responsibility for abstinence and pregnancy prevention falls primarily on the shoulders of women. When Knox’s friend got pregnant, she was kicked out of her house, forced to quit the school’s soccer team and found herself ostracized by her classmates. Her boyfriend at the time claimed that his girlfriend had been a “slut”, denied paternity, and continued to play on the school’s football team. Furthermore, the vast majority of her peers who were asked to take a purity pledge were girls, and girls who refused faced much harsher repercussions than boys. This pattern of blame is a reflection of the societal belief that women must remain “pure” by withholding sex until marriage, while men, being the sex monsters that they are, can try to remain virgins, but it’s really not that important. When such a high emphasis is placed on women’s virginity, sex becomes a commodity that women “have” and men must try to “take”, instead of an enjoyable act that should be something consenting people give one another.
When sex is placed in such a dichotomous relationship, women who aren’t virgins or who choose to express their sexuality openly become devalued and labeled as “used up”, “broken”, or “dirty”. This concept was explained during the presentation through a toothbrush metaphor given by the aforementioned Ed Ainsworth: When given a choice between using a dirty, old toothbrush or a new, still packaged toothbrush, which would you want to brush your teeth with? That’s right: apparently Ainsworth thinks a vagina is like a toothbrush, in that it’s gross and dirty after being used too many times.
Of course, you can’t discuss sex education without talking about abortion. As a feminist, Knox came out as vehimently pro-choice, and while time constraints didn’t allow for a lengthy discussion of abortion rights, she emphasized that restrictions on abortion aren’t simply a matter of “pro-life” v. pro-choice, but a means of punishing women for having sex. If anti-choice advocates truly believed in the sanctity of life, then they would also be in favor of government programs that help mothers raise healthier, more well-adjusted children. However, many of the same people that would fight to deny a pregnant woman access to abortion would also fight to deny mothers access to affordable child care, maternity leave, and other programs that would help ensure the fundamental safety of both the mother and child. Knox mused that, if someone were truly pro-life, they would continue caring about that life even after its birth.
Through her work, Shelby Knox is able to emphasize the importance of comprehensive sex education, as well as the reproductive rights of women of all ages. At only 23 years old, she has become a noted feminist activists, and inspired people to claim themselves as political, social, and cultural feminists. Knox reminds us that feminism is far from dead, and our generation is not the careless, unmotivated group we are so often labeled to be, but are instead capable of enforcing meaningful change within our society.
For more information on Shelby Knox and her work, visit her webpage at http://shelbyknox.com/.
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