Jessica Biel On A Mission To Share Positive, Healthy & Important Info In Her New Sex-Ed Series

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We get it, sex is a big deal. And we’re not just talking about intercourse, we’re talking about every aspect of a woman’s body which includes sexual health, reproduction and even body image, that deserves to be treated with respect and love. But if you look at politics today, especially here in the United States, sexual health and women’s bodies go from being an important aspect of society to some sort of agenda punching bag to garner votes and poll numbers. Frankly, we’re sick of it.

We believe in honest, open communication with our readers, and sharing valuable information that will benefit your life. Everyone has different opinions on sex, sexual health and reproductive health, so for us it only makes sense to be armed with comprehensive information in order for all of us to make the best decisions for our lives and families. Unfortunately, the notion of disseminating non-biased and factual information has in itself become a political battle ground.

Here in the US there is (unsurprising) research that shows states which only push abstinence-only education have the highest rates of teen pregnancy. You’d think in a year like 2015 with great digital technology like Google we have the power to know anything at the click of a button, but there are many young women and men who are still in the dark about a lot of issues relating to sex. One of those women happens to be actress Jessica Biel, who just became a mom for the first time with husband Justin Timberlake.

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Jessica has teamed up with a women’s health organization to release a series of sex education videos in order to dispel myths and arm girls with the information she didn’t have before becoming a mom. Jessica met Saundra Pelletier, the founder of Womencareglobal.org and the two started talking about their experience as mothers. Jessica admitted that there were questions she had about her body which at age 33, she still didn’t know the answer to. She had been on birth control for so long, that when she decided to stop in order to try and conceive, she had no idea how long it would take, among a number of other issues.

Saundra, 46, had her own story of being steeped in sexual ignorance, which the two bonded over. She grew up in a part of Maine where the only expectation on girls was related to who they were going to marry and how many kids they would have. “Understanding how their body worked to make those choices wasn’t talked about,” she told Glamour magazine.

Saundra started her organization to help not just women around the US, but also women elsewhere in the world to get their hands on vital lifesaving healthcare options and give them information about reproductive and sexual health. She has launched initiatives that help donate tampons and pads to women in Africa and South-East Asia as she learned many girls drop out of school when they start menstruating, as they don’t have resources to help them carry on with life as normal.

Here in the US, she sees problems that also need attention.

“More than half of our nation’s pregnancies are unplanned, and just 22 states require public schools to teach sex education. Jessica and I realized we can help change this,” she said.

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Jessica has teamed up with some celebrity gal pals including comedian Whitney Cummings and actress Joy Bryant for a series of videos titled “If You Don’t Tell Them, Then Who Will?” where they discuss everything from birth control, condoms, to puberty and contraception.

“We want girls to know what their [body is going through] so they don’t feel scared or ashamed or gross,” Jessica said.

Their manifesto states: “No more misconceptions, misinformation and myths about our bodies. Let’s get educated. Educate yourself, educate your partner and educate the people around you. If it’s happening in our bodies, we want to talk about it. WomanCare Global wants to empower women and girls by bringing women’s health issues out of the shadows. Our desire is to launch a conversation – to launch a million conversations to destroy the notion that anything about a woman’s body is a taboo topic.”

One of the important aspects of this initiative is to held reduce unwanted pregnancies.

“We need to get young adults this information in a variety of ways. There is power and dignity in understanding your body,” says Saundra.

We couldn’t agree more! In an online Q&A to promote the video series, Jessica and Saundra answered questions from young women about serious issues relating to their bodies and recognized what a valuable and powerful resource they were creating.

She shared her thoughts on how the media portrays women’s bodies, and how it can lead to damaging, lasting results, but there are ways it can be used as a tool for something positive.

“The media does a lot of really wonderful things to support women and women’s bodies. And we can’t discount that, and we’re actively using media to do something amazing, to really talk frankly and openly about women – MY needs, OUR needs, OUR desires,” she said, relating it back to her sexual health video series.

“I think it’s easy for the media to show a prototype of what a women should look like. That’s just not how a women should look – we’re all different, we all have different shapes and sizes. We have all issues…I think it’s easy to want to look a certain way, because you see certain things in magazines and that, but the truth is, we’re amazing because we’re different,” she concluded.

When one participant asked what advice Jessica would give to her son Silas Randall Timberlake, she said integrity and the power to make your own choices.

“All we have left really, truly in this world that we can control is our own integrity. I don’t mean that like sexual integrity, I mean that as a human being. You choose how you live your life, what you deserve. Be good to yourself,” she said.

Sexual health should not be seen as some idealistic or even some liberal thing, it is a vital part of every young woman’s life and we all deserve to have the freedom to ask questions without shame and be given the right information without any bias. That is the key to making the best decisions about our bodies and our lives.

If you are excited about Jessica’s video series and want to be part of a generation of women breaking the cycle of misinformation when it comes to sex and our bodies, you too can take the pledge, watch and share the videos with your circle of women, and find all the info and help you need from this list of resources as shared by Womencareglobal.org.

 

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