By Claudia Gerry, Social Work Major, Critical Sexuality Studies Minor

It was sixth grade, I was in health class, we were in the family life unit. All my classmates could not stop laughing. My teacher had enough of the shenanigans, she made us all stand up and scream, “PENIS” then, “VAGINA” then, “BOOBIES”. I did not understand why it was so funny. Growing up, my mom, a family practice doctor, would read me her medical textbooks to sleep. I was learning biological male anatomy to sleep. I learned how babies were made when I was 5, I simply asked my mom, and she told me, without innuendos, without slang terms, but with her medical textbook. I was always taught medically accurate sex education at home. This luxury is not given to everyone. In my middle school, there was no LGBTQIA+ representation built into our curriculum. Once again, I learned about it at home. I was raised to believe that sex is just a natural part of life, but I must also know how to have safe sex. Not everyone’s parents are as open as mine were, sex education is needed for the safety of everyone. 

The Netherlands and America differ greatly in how they address teenage sexuality, which is very obvious when looking at statistics. American teens, in the industrialized world, have some of the highest rates of STDs. American teen girls are twice more likely to carry a pregnancy to term than they are to receive an abortion. This is most likely due to the stigma surrounding abortion in the US and the lack of factual education about it. Compared to American girls, Dutch girls are less likely to get pregnant and also more likely to have an abortion if pregnant. American teen girls are 4 times as likely to get pregnant, and twice as likely to have an abortion compared to their Dutch counterparts, even though their age of sexual initiation is similar. This is likely due to a lack of education on contraception methods in American schools and homes. Americans heavily stigmatize sexuality, especially for adolescents; they are less likely to educate their children about safe sex practices in the home. This is why sex education in schools is so important.  Dutch youth birth rates are 8 times lower than American youth. Dutch abortion rates are two times lower than the American abortion rates. While the age of sexual initiation for Dutch teens got younger, their birth rate also steeply dropped between the 1970s-1996, it is one of the lowest in the world. Dutch Teens have much lower rates of pregnancy, birth, abortion, and HIV among youth than American teens. 

The book “Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex” by Amy T. Schalet is about the comparison of attitudes of adolescent sexuality in the United States and the Netherlands. I read this book for my CSST 332 Sex and Society class. Schalet is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Schalet’s findings are based on interviews and knowledge about each country’s government and laws. She interviews 130 Dutch and American parents and adolescents (mostly 10th graders) between early 1990 and 2000 who are all similar in education level, religion, class and race, and asks them a series of questions. The main question asked is, as a parent, “would you allow your adolescent child to have a sleepover with the opposite [gender**]?”, or as an adolescent, “would your parent allow you to have a sleepover with the opposite [gender**].?” We find that the answers vary depending on the country, but why? The book explores and explains teenage sexuality in the United States and the Netherlands, mostly in relation to family.  

In the Netherlands, teenage sexuality is seen as normal. Dutch culture normalizes sexuality through three cultural frames: normal sexuality, relationship based sexuality, and self regulated sexuality. Normal sexuality refers to the fact that sexuality can be talked about in an open, unproblematic, and matter of fact manner. Relationship based sexuality refers to the idea that sexual desire and sexual acts grow out of a teen’s feelings for and relationship with another person. Finally, Self-regulated sexuality refers to the belief that readiness for sex is a moment when emotional and physical desires are united, and sensible preventative measures are taken. Sex is talked about in the home like any other topic. There is also an emphasis on safe sex coming from social institutions as well, so Dutch teens are getting the same message from multiple sources. Independent individualism is the dominant cultural norm in the Netherlands. Schalet uses the examples of alcohol, adulthood, and authority when explaining types of individualism. In the Netherlands, alcohol is socially embedded, which leads to teens developing internal control. To be an adult, they need to be able to financially and emotionally self regulate, and authority means to reach mutual agreements. Dutch parents use a form of control over their children called control through connection. Dutch parents tend to use mutual agreements instead of American overt displays of power, making many Dutch adolescents agree to the restrictions placed on them. But, sometimes Dutch teens still feel like their parents are being too restrictive, so they will do things in stiekem (secret). The Dutch societal system has much more room for error compared to America, they have second chances to finish high school, easy access to abortion and emergency contraception, less risk of drunk driving due to the fact that they bike everywhere, and there are fewer legal sanctions surrounding alcohol and drugs. This extra room for error allows Dutch parents to not have to worry as much as their American peers if their children veer off the normalized course of life.

In the United States, teenage sexuality is dramatized. There are 3 frames that support the dramatization of teenage sexuality in the United States, Hormone-based sexuality, the battle between the sexes, and parent-regulated adolescent sexuality. Hormone-based sexuality, also referred to as raging hormones, refers to the idea that hormones are an overpowering force that teens cannot control, leaving parents to think there is a disjunction between the onset of hormones and the cognitive/emotional development needed to control them. The battle between the sexes refers to the fact that sex at adolescence is conceptualized as a battle with winners and losers, and costs and benefits. Lastly, parent-regulated adolescent sexuality refers to the fact that parents think it is their job to monitor and control their teen’s raging hormones because they cannot control themselves, they regulate whatever is in their control, for example, the not under my roof sentiment. American parents avoid the topic of sexuality in the home, leaving it to the school to teach, but the sex education legislation fails its students. Every state has different standards for sex education, some states do not even require the information being taught to be medically accurate. Some parents want to avoid the topic of sexuality in their children’s lives so much that they opt out of the school sex education provided. Adversarial individualism is the dominant cultural norm in the United States. In this form of individualism, teens need external control in relation to alcohol, to be an adult they need to be financially and emotionally self-sufficient, and authority means to win the important battles and let go of the small things. American parents use a form of control over their children called connection through control. American adolescents try to maintain a good kid image for their parents, yet they break the stricter rules to create separation between themselves and their families.

Overall, through reading this book, I learned that the American view of teenage sexuality is not the norm for the rest of the world, specifically the Netherlands.  I think the main ideas of the book are things all parents should know. We see that Dutch unintended pregnancy and STI rates are lower than their US counterparts, and that the Dutch tend to get married and stay married instead of getting multiple divorces like many Americans. I believe that parents should try their best to use the parenting style the Dutch use. Not only for a closer family dynamic, but for the safety and success of their children. 

I always knew that I was raised differently than my peers, but just because I was educated in this way doesn’t mean that the culture I live in had no effect on me. I was raised to ask questions and be open about sexuality, but around the age of 12, I began to keep things secret from my family and close myself off. Even though I was raised similarly to Dutch youth, I still act similarly to my American peers. This shows how important culture is. My parents raised me to be open, but I closed myself off because that was what everyone else my age was doing and was what I would see on TV. I experienced sexual trauma when I was a tween and went through it alone because that’s what my culture made me think was normal. My sex education in school did not emphasize enthusiastic consent and did not give us resources for help. Sex education is now one of my passions. I think every person should know their bodies and understand consent completely. I believe that if we as a society can open up about the human experience of sexuality, people would feel safer talking about their stories, have better sexual experiences, and overall be happier.

**This book was really eye-opening, but my main critique is the use of gendered language and the disregard of nonbinary/gender-nonconforming individuals. I tried my best to use the most inclusive language possible, but that cannot make up for the lack of data given, most likely due to this work being published in 2011 and there not being much research done on that community.

Citation

Schalet, A. T. (2011). Not under my roof : parents, teens, and the culture of sex. University Of Chicago Press.

GEARS had their 3MT information session on Nov. 03 where Scott Morgan shared details regarding the 3MT competition to be held in Spring 2026 on April 07th. 

Registration to participate in the 3MT competition will begin soon! Look out for a post from us in January 2026!

Thank you so much for attending the Asian American Children's Literature Exhibition organized by Dr. Sharon Tran! We had a beautiful evening engaging with work created by Dr. Tran's English 360 students and sharing in story time with Dr. Tamara Bhalla, Dr. Fan Yang, and their daughters. 

Plans are in the work to host the children's books that students selected in an accessible location for people to visit. For now, please reach out to Dr. Fan Yang (Director, Asian Studies) at fanyang@umbc.edu if you would like to check them out!

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab presents

Analysis of the Security Design, Engineering, and Implementation of the SecureDNA System

Alan T. Sherman, Enis Golszewski, and Jeremy J. Romanik Romano
UMBC CSEE Department

Joint work with Edward Zieglar, Jonathan D. Fuchs, and William E. Byrd

12:00 noon–1pm Friday, December 12, 2025 via WebEx

We analyze security aspects of the SecureDNA system regarding its system design, engineering, and implementation. This system enables DNA synthesizers to screen order requests against a database of hazards.  By applying novel cryptography involving distributed oblivious pseudorandom functions, the system aims to keep order requests and the database of hazards secret. Discerning the detailed operation of the system in part from source code (Version 1.0.8), our analysis examines key management, certificate infrastructure, authentication, and rate-limiting mechanisms. We also perform the first formal-methods analysis of the mutual authentication, basic request, and exemption-handling protocols.

Without breaking the cryptography, our main finding is that SecureDNA's custom mutual authentication protocol SCEP achieves only one-way authentication: the hazards database and keyservers never learn with whom they communicate. This structural weakness violates the principle of defense in depth and enables an adversary to circumvent rate limits that protect the secrecy of the hazards database, if the synthesizer connects with a malicious or corrupted keyserver or hashed database. We point out an additional structural weakness that also violates the principle of defense in depth: inadequate cryptographic bindings prevent the system from detecting if responses, within a TLS channel, from the hazards database were modified. Consequently, if a synthesizer were to reconnect with the database over the same TLS session, an adversary could replay and swap responses from the database without breaking TLS. Although the SecureDNA implementation does not allow such reconnections, it would be stronger security engineering to avoid the underlying structural weakness. We identify these vulnerabilities and suggest and verify mitigations, including adding strong bindings. Software Version 1.1.0 fixes SCEP with our proposed SCEP+ protocol.

Our work illustrates that a secure system needs more than sound mathematical cryptography; it also requires formal specifications, sound key management, proper binding of protocol message components, and careful attention to engineering and implementation details.

Dr. Alan T. Sherman is a professor of computer science at UMBC in the CSEE Department, associate director of UMBC's Cybersecurity Institute, and director of the Cyber Defense Lab.  His main research interest is high-integrity voting systems. He has carried out research in election systems, protocol analysis, algorithm design, cryptanalysis, theoretical foundations for cryptography, applications of cryptography, cloud forensics, and cybersecurity education. Dr. Sherman is also a private consultant performing security analyses and serving as an expert witness.  Sherman earned the PhD degree in computer science at MIT in 1987, studying under Ronald L. Rivest.  His research accomplishments include contributions to the Scantegrity and VoteXX election systems and development and validation of the Cybersecurity Concept Inventory (CCI) and Cybersecurity Curriculum Assessment (CCA). This work has been presented at USENIX Security 2010 and E-VOTE-ID 2025, and won best research paper at SIGSCE 2023. Sherman received approximately $15 million in funding from NSF, NSA, and IBM. 

Dr. Enis Golaszewski is a teaching assistant professor of computer science at UMBC in the CSEE Department.  He holds weekly workshops in formal-methods analyses of cryptographic protocols using the Cryptographic Protocol Shapes Analyzer (CPSA). His current research projects include analysis of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) protocol. Golaszewski earned the PhD under Sherman. His dissertation includes the design and development of a tool---ProtoBindGuard---that automatically binds protocol messages to context to prevent protocol-interaction attacks.  Golaszewski is a former SFS scholar at UMBC. https://www.csee.umbc.edu/enis-golaszewski/

Jeremy J. Romanik Romano is an MS student in computer science at UMBC.  His research interests include cybersecurity, software security, and protocol analysis.  His involvement in this project began through being a student in Sherman's INSuRE and cryptology research courses.  Romano is a member of the UMBC Protocol Analysis Lab and system administration and cybersecurity clubs on campus.

Drop by Commons 308 for a bowl of cereal or breakfast bar!

We have 

• Fruit Loops

• Cap'N Crunch

• Cinnamon Toast Crunch

• Frosted Flakes

• Nature Valley Bars

• Nutrigrain Fruit Bars

Permanent Private Room for Female  @ Westland Gardens

Immediate move-in.

Rent is 636$ +BGE +Wifi

The 2BHK townhouse is fully furnished and includes:

• Spacious living room with sofa

• Kitchen with oven, microwave, fridge, and dishwasher

• In-unit washer and dryer

• Dining table with chairs

• Central heating and cooling

Location perks:

• 1-minute walk to the UMBC bus stop

• 10-minute walk to UMBC campus

Message for details: +1 (443) 703-6282

LHGSA & BGSO Collab Event

Holiday Chill Event: Study, Play Games, Hot Cocoa

Paul- B.S. INDS 

LHGSA & BGSO Collab Event

Holiday Chill Event: Study, Play Games, Hot Cocoa