dear internet, let me tell you some things about my public-school-in-georgia sex education.
pictured above is my abstinence til marriage card, given to me in my eighth grade health class. as you can see, i did not sign it, so it is non-binding. they were “optional” but the teacher placed the basket at the front of the class and stared us down. my 13-year-old self had a very brief dilemma between 1. making a stand and not getting one or 2. getting one because it’s fucking hilarious. i am very glad i chose the latter, because as i predicted, this is now something hilarious to show everyone.
that year in health we also learned “how to spot the identifying features of a crack baby” which is literally nothing but lies. we had a system of anonymous questions, and once someone asked “how do i know if i’m a lesbian?” our teacher looked disgusted and she replied “how would i know? i’m not a lesbian!”
EDIT i forgot to mention when she gave these to us she suggested we “cut up our cards together with our husbands on our wedding day” and i remember thinking, fuck if i marry someone from my middle school
the next time i had sex ed in high school it was taught by a dude gym coach who spent the whole time talking about his daughters. the book we were learning from listed “low self-esteem” “stunted social growth” and “depression,” among others, as consequences of premarital sex. at one point, it asked us to fill in the disadvantages of having an abortion. our teacher went, “well, i’m personally against abortion, so we’re just going to skip this section,” which confused me, because it was explicitly asking for an argument against abortion.
the last time i had sex ed it was pretty good and there were free condoms and we got little bottles of lube every time we answered questions, but i don’t think that counts cause it was in an intro to women’s studies class.
in my 8th grade health class we watched this video about abstinence and the slogan was “a condom can’t protect your heart”
Our school made us watch a video with some man talking about how virginity was like a flower and that whenever we had sex with someone we’d give a bit of that flower away. Then when we met someone we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with we’d just be left with a wilted stem and a couple of petals when we should be giving them a whole flower.
I really wish I was joking.
In church they used to tell us that we were like cupcakes and if we were physically intimate with our partners it was like getting the icing licked off, and therefore no one would want you afterwards because no one wants a licked cupcake.
in my sex ed class we did this demonstration where they had this line of kids swish and spit out water and combine the nasty backwash to make this gross concoction as a metaphor for how sex before marriage makes you dirty and gross
fucking public education
I might as well add my church group. We had to open a kiss candy, put it in our mouth, melt it a little bit and then put it back in the wrapper. From their we had to hand it someone else and they explained, “this is what happens when you have sex before marriage. You have to give those dirty leftovers to your spouse.”
In my grade 8 “sex ed” class we all listened to the song “I dreamed a dream” from Les Mis and then the teacher was like THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU HAVE SEX and I really kind of wanted to do it just to see if I really would become a 19th century French prostitute with a beautiful singing voice
Every time I hear stories like these, I think what the fuck kind of a sex education did you American kids get omfg.
We don’t get sex education – at least a lot of us don’t. We get scare tactics.