on my sex (negative) education
| By FEM - Mar 27th, 2006 at 10:31 am EST |
I went to public schools in Los Angeles County. We had sex education in elementary school (twice), junior high school, and high school.
In elementary school, the boys and girls were separated into different classrooms. Girls learned about menstruation. We got a pamphlet on it and free maxi pads (of course they selected the most huge and uncomfortable pads that I haven't seen since then). I am not sure what the boys learned but they had fun laughing about it and quoting a movie they watched. They could not stop talking about sex ed. The girls talked about what they learned when with other girls (quietly) but wouldn't say much of anything about it to the boys. When the boys asked to see our pamphlets, the girls were shy. But, one girl ended up giving a boy hers to make him settle down. He started reading it aloud to his buddies. I didn't notice it at the time but girls were already socialized to see the sexual as something that should not be talked about whereas boys were socialized to see the sexual as something that can be talked about--but only in a joking manner. And, of course, "the sexual" was defined only by menstruation and the chance for pregnancy (somehow a fertilized egg just appeared in the uterus)--physiology and procreation.
In junior high school, two weeks were devoted to sex education. This was taught in science class. Lucky for my class, our teacher let us put questions in a hat (the sexual is still considered shameful) and he would answer them in front of the class. But, other than that, we did labs on genetics (we had to pair up with a student of the opposite sex and create "a baby" by doing coin tosses on our physical traits… like brown eyes, blood type, etc) which focused on procreation and a lab on HIV (we were all given cups of water and one student had a clear solution in his/her cup that contained "the virus", we were then told to mix our solutions with 5 other students… at the end of the lab, we went in front of the class to put a chemical in our cup to make "the virus" visible if we had contracted it, even though it was a game, I was proud when everyone saw I didn't have it). So, now we have sex as genetics (procreation) and disease.
In high school, we took a class on health that spent one week on drugs, family types, STDs, and pregnancy. We were taught how to prevent pregnancy and avoid catching nasty STDs. We never learned sex could be fun. We learned it was something that could give you an unwanted child or a gross/lethal illness. This course used to include a demonstration where students place condoms on bananas but a parent complained this was offensive… the demo was soon eliminated.
At UCLA orientation, I learned all about rape. Granted, we also learned that sex goes beyond P/V intercourse but the dark cloud over us all was rape and the perceived constant risk of rape. Sex seemed scary yet again.
Disease, death, unwanted pregnancy, rape--sex doesn't seem too fun. However, many students were riling with sexual desire that they had to hide. I was taught this in third grade--we were assigned to use an adjective to describe ourselves that used the first letter of our first or last name. I called myself "Sexy Stover"--the teacher used wite-out to cover this and then placed it on the wall with the others. She never told me why she did this though but I knew. I felt embarrassed but also a bit proud because I had transgressed such a taboo. (The funny thing was that I didn't feel anything "sexual" when I wrote "Sexy Stover"… I just thought I looked pretty in the drawing).
Michelle Stover (MS)
In elementary school, the boys and girls were separated into different classrooms. Girls learned about menstruation. We got a pamphlet on it and free maxi pads (of course they selected the most huge and uncomfortable pads that I haven't seen since then). I am not sure what the boys learned but they had fun laughing about it and quoting a movie they watched. They could not stop talking about sex ed. The girls talked about what they learned when with other girls (quietly) but wouldn't say much of anything about it to the boys. When the boys asked to see our pamphlets, the girls were shy. But, one girl ended up giving a boy hers to make him settle down. He started reading it aloud to his buddies. I didn't notice it at the time but girls were already socialized to see the sexual as something that should not be talked about whereas boys were socialized to see the sexual as something that can be talked about--but only in a joking manner. And, of course, "the sexual" was defined only by menstruation and the chance for pregnancy (somehow a fertilized egg just appeared in the uterus)--physiology and procreation.
In junior high school, two weeks were devoted to sex education. This was taught in science class. Lucky for my class, our teacher let us put questions in a hat (the sexual is still considered shameful) and he would answer them in front of the class. But, other than that, we did labs on genetics (we had to pair up with a student of the opposite sex and create "a baby" by doing coin tosses on our physical traits… like brown eyes, blood type, etc) which focused on procreation and a lab on HIV (we were all given cups of water and one student had a clear solution in his/her cup that contained "the virus", we were then told to mix our solutions with 5 other students… at the end of the lab, we went in front of the class to put a chemical in our cup to make "the virus" visible if we had contracted it, even though it was a game, I was proud when everyone saw I didn't have it). So, now we have sex as genetics (procreation) and disease.
In high school, we took a class on health that spent one week on drugs, family types, STDs, and pregnancy. We were taught how to prevent pregnancy and avoid catching nasty STDs. We never learned sex could be fun. We learned it was something that could give you an unwanted child or a gross/lethal illness. This course used to include a demonstration where students place condoms on bananas but a parent complained this was offensive… the demo was soon eliminated.
At UCLA orientation, I learned all about rape. Granted, we also learned that sex goes beyond P/V intercourse but the dark cloud over us all was rape and the perceived constant risk of rape. Sex seemed scary yet again.
Disease, death, unwanted pregnancy, rape--sex doesn't seem too fun. However, many students were riling with sexual desire that they had to hide. I was taught this in third grade--we were assigned to use an adjective to describe ourselves that used the first letter of our first or last name. I called myself "Sexy Stover"--the teacher used wite-out to cover this and then placed it on the wall with the others. She never told me why she did this though but I knew. I felt embarrassed but also a bit proud because I had transgressed such a taboo. (The funny thing was that I didn't feel anything "sexual" when I wrote "Sexy Stover"… I just thought I looked pretty in the drawing).
Michelle Stover (MS)
!
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Abstinence-and-only-oral-sex education.
Imagine if they taught that waiting until marriage for sex is desirable, but emphasized the positive aspects of oral sex (for both sides) in the meantime. Maybe it's just me, but I'd bet the teen pregnancy rate would plummet.
After a while, you'd want more.
Teaching them that shit won't work. Give them an inch (no pun intended) and they'll want an ell.
Might as well go all out.
Whereas sex education at schools consisted of preventing the diseases like the plague, our sexual education was a bit different – it talked about choices, emotions, birth control, consequences, relationships and the whole-nine yards.
We were taught that sex is a beautiful and wonderful thing that is to be shared responsibly by people, and that it is about the physical aspect of it as it is about respect and such …
Of course, we were also taught about self-pleasure, contraceptives and such. Our religious education leaders were opened and honest about it, rather than treating sex like it hurts.
As a result, once we hit high school, we were happy, healthy kids – happy because we got to have sex and healthy because we knew how to be safe as well as not get pregnant. Most of us were also very respectful of people’s choices.
Lesson learned? Sex education in schools must not only be taught as a science, but also a philosophy. Although I think the complications of our church’s teachings might not stand too well with some conservatives.