Sexual Education
by DAISY THOMAS
When I was six, my mother walked into my room and dropped a book on my bed. “You need to read this now,” she instructed as she left for work. I picked up the book and began to read, pouring over Susan Perl’s beautiful illustrations of babies and kids, absorbing every word Dr. Robert Brooks wrote. Everything was presented very matter of factly and in an age appropriate manner, at least according to my precocious younger self’s memory.
As the daughter of a single mother nurse, the human body — and all of its workings, weirdness, and wonder — not only was not some grand mystery, but in fact, rather mundane and in need of increased caretaking, both of yourself and by others as it ages. It shocked me in fifth grade science during the small health section that dealt with the human body and its functions that we first needed to have our parents sign a permission slip in order to participate. I ruined any chance of being teacher’s pet that year when our ready for retirement teacher referenced when a woman gets married, her body prepares for her husband to make her a mommy and I responded along the lines that technically not only you didn’t need to be married, but that as soon as we (the girls and boys had been separated for these lessons) experienced our first menstruation our bodies were evolutionarily capable of pregnancy, but obviously it wouldn’t be a good idea for all of us to do that because it’s the modern era and we had to make sure we got to have a real life after high school and college first.
Yeah, I was that kid. I would continue reading about the human body, its functions, definitions, and purposes on the scholastic level, but the only other sex talk I’d have with any of my parents would be to “stay away from boys” and talks with friends as we got older were either wrapped up in boy-band fantasies or whether or not anal sex counted against virginity* if you were hetero — an issue that we never could agree on as a friend group, and an even tenser one in the peer counseling group I was a part of, a group that went around to other schools to talk about sexual health.
But even at the time I knew what we were doing was still controversial. Although I felt safe and secure in my traditional and conservative role in pushing the importance of waiting, I was thankful that we had the opportunities to talk to other teens. Everything I knew was either from personal experience / trauma, So That’s How I was Born, and/or from further readings — remaining on the technical side for far too long thanks to a long held obsession with reading Taber’s Medical Dictionary for funsies. Thank goodness for HBO’s Real Sex to help fill in all the gaps (low-hanging fruit) and a very brief stint doing personal bookkeeping for an adult film star and her rather unsettling “producer” husband to round out what verbiage, because while we had internet it was nowhere nearly as prolific as today. One had better chances of learning about and understanding sexuality issues no one talked about by reading Jane and Sassy than navigating the ugly world of bulletin boards and chat rooms.
Thankfully, organizations like SIECUS Sex Ed for Social Change exist. Too many folks continue to lack vocabulary, definitions, understanding, and options when it comes to sex and sexuality or they are only aware of partial information, unsure where they could even begin to ask such questions. Their downloadable History of Sexual Education is an excellent resource and one we need to read and consider. History has amazing lessons to be learned, all the more fascinating when those lessons regard sexuality.
A well rounded sex education is deep, complicated, and fascinating — and one we will continue to need to expand upon as we navigate our ever changing societal and sexual norms, our own personal understanding and ongoing development, and what new norms we want to accept, what we are willing to accept, and whether women will (continue to) have the freedoms to make such decisions for ourselves as we move forward into the next season of 2021.
*Virginity is a social construct. No one’s sex organs can change who you are or your worthiness as a person, inherently deserving of dignity and respect.