SPOTLIGHT ON AASECT'S 2014 SUMMER INSTITUTE'S
RITCH C. SAVIN-WILLIAMS, PHD – “THE KIDS ARE
ALRIGHT”
AASECT Institutes aim to transform participants' experiences---not simply to add useful
information to their stores of knowledge. Small, intimate, and designed to explore themes that
are keystones to our work, AASECT Institutes are intended to create shifts in how we see
sexuality and how we are working with the erotic in our own lives and those of our clients.
If we want to be critical and relevant practitioners, we need to stay at the edge of creative
destruction and innovation. Educational theorist Lev Vygotsky calls this edge the “zone of
proximal development (ZPD).” ZPD is that place where we almost can’t get it, can’t think
because it’s beyond our intellectual reach—at the moment. The stretch to think beyond our usual
thoughts, induced by being put in the ZPD, keeps us aroused and growing.
That is why this year’s Summer Institute kicks off with Ritch C. SavinWilliams’ workshop. Savin-Williams is a contrarian, a visionary whose theory is
generative. Generative theory changes paradigms, takes us into new territory.
Over twenty years ago, Savin-Williams, a Professor of Psychology at Cornell University, started
writing about LGBT experience and theory, against the grain. While many scholars studied how
stigma and oppression pushed LGBT kids out of homes and into streets, made them vulnerable to
destructive life styles and even suicide ideation, Savin-Williams took a strengths perspective.
Savin-Williams de-pathologizes lesbians, gays and bisexuals in ways beyond normalizing their
sexuality. He objects to how so many psychologists focus on making these kids look like
"damaged goods.” Savin-Williams claims that most LGBT youth are not irreparably harmed by
oppression—their agency and resilience are models of effective resistance. In seeing
victimization so prominently, he points out in The New Gay Teenager, observers miss seeing
LGBT young people holistically. This population demonstrates agency, creativity, resilience, and
insight that can serve as models worth studying. In over fifty books and articles, Savin-Williams
shows how heterocentrism has exaggerated disadvantages of not being straight and has
overlooked advantages of growing up outside of heterosexuality.
This is exactly the kind of contrarian vision the Institute Planning Committee, made up of
Michele Sugg, Konnie McCaffree, Joan Sughrue, and myself, wants to feature. We want to give
ourselves the chance to examine different ideas, ones that can shake up our conventional thought.
If you are looking to deepen your work in sexuality, if you want to challenge the ways you think
and do things, to be put into the ZPD, consider attending the 2014 Summer Institute. The theme
of the 2014 Summer Institute?--- “Is Sex Good for Adolescence?"
The Summer Institute, July 21-24, will be hosted by the Brown School, Washington University
in St. Louis. You may register or get more information about our schedule and all eight
transgressive presenters at http://www.aasect.org/2014-aasect-summer-institute. Like Ritch
Savin-Williams, their views of young people offer us new ways of seeing adolescent sexuality
positively and new ways of understanding our own experiences as adolescents.