sex education

 Some time in the mid-80's, the high school lunch room. I'm with my small circle of friends. Us girls are talking about sex, because...high school girls. Someone said something about staying a virgin because she was afraid to get pregnant. Followed up by worrying about what to eat so she wouldn't hurt a baby. What happens if my cheeseburger bonks it on the head? she asks in all seriousness. Someone else mentioned that you can't get pregnant the first time.

I was appalled. Both statements were ludicrous. I proceeded to hold an impromptu sex education class during lunch. I explained anatomy using appropriate medical terminology for body parts for male and female. I think I might have drawn a picture of a uterus and fallopian tubes on a napkin. I explained how sex worked, how pregnancy worked, and that no Virginia, your cheeseburger will not "bonk" a baby on its head. I explained that you can get pregnant any time you have sex, including the first time. The girls at my table asked how I knew all of this.

Let me reiterate: this was high school. Not middle school, not grade school. High school. We were all at least 14 years old. All of us had started our periods. None of this should have been new information.

I was lucky. My parents decided when I was young that I would have honest, accurate information. Every question I asked was always answered as a very young child. The answers were honest and factual while being age-appropriate. As my mother said often, if you are old enough to ask you are old enough to to be given an answer. So I was prepared when I started my period at 11. I wasn't frightened. I knew what it probably was so instead of panicking, I talked to my mom. Her talks with me got much more frank and detailed at that point. We talked about birth control and sex and how she thought I was too young but if I ever felt like it was time to use protection and come to her to get birth control. At 11 my response was to remind her I still played with dolls, I'm definitely too young for sex. She was relieved but likely not surprised.

My school system gave the first sex ed talk in 5th grade, girls and boys were separated. You needed parental consent. My dad asked me to just sit quietly and not ask questions. Looking back I probably understood better than my teacher and/or anything I asked would result in a call from the school and yet another parent-teacher conference. I did as asked. we watched some after school special type movie about pads and body hair and that was that. I never found out what boys were taught. In high school health class we got a little more anatomy and briefly touched on reproduction and that was that. We may have been sex-segregated again, I'm not sure. It was the 80's, they touched on AIDS/ARC, remember ARC? ARC was HIV before it was called HIV. By then I'd learned to keep my mouth shut to get along. School sucks but that's a different blog post.

This year Moms for Liberty (hard eye roll on that name) is challenging the sex ed provided in local high schools because they should be teaching abstinence and not birth control or STI prevention. Um, remember HIV/AIDS? How about syphilis, chlamydia, herpes? Oh, abstinence, right, because that's always been effective (hard eye roll). I am appalled, just as I was in high school when I held an impromptu sex ed class over lunch. 

I thought we would move beyond puritanical hold-overs by now. I thought we would be more comfortable educating children and young adults on their bodies and the bodies of the opposite sex by now. I honestly thought that STIs and pregnancy would trump abstinence only education by now.  I hope the children of Moms for Liberty (hard eye roll on that name) meet someone whose parents chose factual, accurate information over storks and cabbages who will hold an impromptu sex ed class over lunch.