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What Sex Ed Should Be Like

9/22/2014

5 Comments

 
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I don't remember much about my sex ed class.  I attended a handful of different elementary and middle schools, and I remember: (1) the girls being separated from the boys; (2) being shown some kind of cartoon about sperm and eggs; (3) our PE teacher telling us we needed to use deodorant from now on.  I also remember leaving the sex ed video being suddenly unsure about whether sex was what made babies.  I had thought so going into it, but the movie hadn't said anything about sex, and the animated version of fertilization seemed pretty divorced from two people doing it.

There was, of course, nothing at all about homosexuality, bisexuality, or gender identity or expression.  The curriculum basically assumed that when girls grew up and got boobs, they would suddenly be interested in boys, dresses, and makeup.  Growing up meant a continued separation of the sexes, and it meant that girls and boys couldn't really be friends after puberty.  If you were a "tomboy," you'd grow out of it.  Even if the curriculum had included something about homosexuality, the culture in the various working-class suburbs from which I hail would have never allowed it to be taken seriously.  If anyone had "come out" in my high school or middle school, they'd have been ostracized and probably beaten to a pulp.

I know that some schools still teach sex ed basically this way, and in other schools it's way more progressive.  I was super heartened to stumble on a blog post written earlier this year that translates part of a pamphlet that Dutch girls are given. 
I was floored by how incredibly progressive and awesome and inclusive it was.  Here's my favorite part:

Take the time to figure it out! Are you uncertain whether you’re lesbian? That’s perfectly natural. Often, you’ll know after puberty what you are exactly. In any case, try to enjoy it if you fall in love, whether it’s with a girl or a boy.

Wait, what?  Seriously?  No big deal either way?  Love is love; just enjoy it?  Can you imagine having been given something like this when you were a kid? Would it have mattered?  And can any of my younger readers talk about what sex ed is like in the U.S. these days?

5 Comments
Lee
9/23/2014 01:29:14 am

That pamphlet is amazing. I practically teared up. I can't imagine having gotten that when I was a kid 30 years ago. Wow.

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Akiva
9/23/2014 03:37:13 am

Last time I had sex ed was 8th grade, so about 2002. I remain extremely annoyed at my Bio teacher for spending almost an entire class period telling us about how she was so cool that she was going to give us sex ed with *everything in*, and we should ask her *any questions, no matter how silly.* This included telling a long 'hilarious' story about how a parent came to visit the class one day during sex ed and found that the board said only "HOMOSEXUALITY AND YOU." We never got to "HOMOSEXUALITY AND YOU," probably because she wasted so much time joking about it. (It's been >10 years obviously, but that's how I remember it.)

It's not like I was in a conservative district---I'm from a big city, my school was notoriously chock-full of queer kids (mostly gay boys, but others as well), and liberal enough that I think Ralph Nader won the student mock election.

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Clay
9/23/2014 12:46:16 pm

I go to an incredibly open and accepting high school, I've been out for over two years and have received no negative messages within school (although my ex did receive from). Middle school was surely not as open and I went to a school that didn't handle bullying very well at all despite being a "no place for hate" school. Even if the school wasn't great, I live in one of the most liberal, happy, and well educated middle sized cities in the country that is overall very accepting.

I last took a sex ed class three years ago, in middle school. I'm not really taking a high school health course, it is online because I see no benefit in taking one at school.

There is an event every year as part of a safe schools program in my district to help address LGBTQ* issues. I'm not part of GSA or anything of the sort, but I went to this conference last year and I plan to go this year. Basically we go to all these panels and talk about queer issues in our school.

Last year there was a panel on sex ed. The main point was that we need to have more queer related education as well as learning about pleasure not just the mechanics of it all. We had an LGBT unit in my middle school class in which we watched a film about being gay and were told that it was okay. The only actual sex related thing I recall was being told that one use of female condoms was for girls having sex with girls.

I'm sure my sex ed class was better than what it was years ago and we learned about really important topics such as self harm in a good environment (as good as any environment in middle school is). I was fortunate to have a really amazing health teacher who I went to to talk about how I was questioning my sexuality. I brought my best friend with me who then was my girlfriend for two and a half years.

Even with a really supportive teacher, I came out of that class just as confused about everything sex related as I went in. A good friend of mine in Connecticut goes to an abstinence school and is taught much less about sex, let alone anything re: queer issues.

Overall, I don't think any harm was done by my sex ed class and it provided important opportunities. I think I learned more about identity reading Annie on My Mind under my covers in eighth grade than I learned in health class, or at least it had a more important and lasting impact on me. I realize that may seem like an unequal comparison, but I think learning how to approach and begin to comprehend your identity is an incredibly important part of sex ed. It should be more about the emotions and everything behind sex than the actual mechanics of it.

Maybe my sex ed class was relatively great. It's hard to look upon middle school with something other than discomfort and bitterness. Whatever the case, I still think there is room for improvement.

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Rebecca
9/27/2014 01:01:12 pm

I had sex ed in middle school, about 2007, and seem to recall a lot of anatomy coloring pages. I don't think anyone mentioned sexuality, heck, I know I had to learn what sex was from Wikipedia. (I had parents with a charmingly deluded notion that sex ed would teach us what sex was.) Then they made us watch a bunch of videos about how pregnancy would ruin our lives. They didn't mention any sexuality at all--including heterosexuality, which was an interesting take on the whole "sex ed" thing. It was mostly just a class about how drugs are bad and we shouldn't smoke, with a few coloring pages detailing what reproductive organs were where.

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Micheal link
6/3/2022 01:35:54 am

Great read tthankyou

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