Careful With the Balls, Girls

I can’t believe I am saying this, but I don’t mind talking to my children about sex. I am very direct and matter of fact about it. I use the real words like penis and vagina, and I even explain why they too should use them (who wants to be the person who tells her doctor that her hoo-ha itches?). I’m glad I am so open and honest with them because I know they will bring their questions to me. I’m also glad because the public school system in our state covers abstinence thoroughly and sexuality marginally. They tell you about the parts and then tell you not to use them. They should call it asexual education.

My teen got in the car on Monday morning, and as usual, she was running late.

“Did you get your lunch and your gym uniform?” I asked her, as I do every Monday morning.

“Yes to the lunch, but I don’t need my gym uniform this week. We’re doing sex education so we don’t need them,” she said.

“What, you just take off your clothes? Wear your birthday suits? They just jump right in, don’t they?” I said.

“Jeez, Mom, gross. No, we just sit in the gym and get lectured. We don’t have to change clothes and we don’t sit around naked. Only they separate us for sex ed, so it’s not like our usual groups.”

“Separate you? How? Do they pair you up? ‘You go with you. You go with you. You with you.  You and you. And you’re left, so you’ll be with me.” I mimicked a gym teacher pairing up kids, pointing my finger at imaginary students.

It took the teen a minute to understand what I meant, and then she laughed. It’s so cool she gets all the jokes now.

“You’re so weird, Mom.” She doesn't know the half of it.

“I didn’t know what you meant,” I said. “First you don’t need clothes, and now they are separating you into pairs. I thought maybe you had, like, partners or something. The buddy system. What’s the test like? Is your grade based on your performance?”

“No, Mom, stop it.” She made her squeamish face. “They don’t teach us how to do it. They only tell us not to do it. And we’re not in pairs. They separate boys from girls.”

That afternoon, I asked her what they covered.

“Oh, you know, the most important thing to remember is to not have sex until you are married and that way you won’t get any diseases.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “You can still get some STD’s through oral contact.”

“Well, they don’t talk about oral contact, Mom. Gross. They just spend a lot of time on AIDS and herpes and how you can have it for the rest of your life.”

“Did they talk about the shots you got for HPV virus?” I asked her.

“No, besides, that’s not as bad as the other ones. And if everybody has the shots, what’s the big deal?”

“Not everyone has the shots, honey. And probably fifty percent of our population has it. And it causes cervical cancer, so you can die from it. It’s a big deal too. And what about chlamydia and gonorrhea? They are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Did they talk about that?”

“Of course not.”

“What do they talk about?”

“Really just the anatomy of the guy’s organs. And the baby and stuff. It’s not much different than last year.”

I quizzed her a bit more, and what I found out is that the public school will tell girls all about penises and testicles, even about the sensitivity of the glans, but girls still aren’t supposed to know they have a clitoris. Orgasms are not mentioned, nor are condoms. Sex is either for procreation or for ruining your life or both.

I almost wish I had a son, or at least a friend with one in the seventh grade, because I am really curious what the boys learn. Are they learning about how fabulous their penises too, or are they covering the mysterious clitoris? If girls are learning to not kick boys in the balls, are the boys learning that against her will is against the law? Is abstinence covered for both genders, or is virginity  just stressed with the girls?

I suppose I could read the syllabus, but that kind of takes the fun out of asking my teen on a daily basis: And what did you learn today? Did your coaches demonstrate it? Did they ask for any volunteers? How do you get an A? Can you earn extra credit?

When I was at the grocery store today, I heard a baby crying when I walked by the dairy aisle. That baby continued to cry for the entire time I shopped for groceries, even while I was waiting in line to check out. It stopped briefly, but then started again while I swiped my credit card. All I could think was never shake a baby, but I’m telling you, I wanted to make that baby stop crying in the worst way. All the people waiting in line to check out behind me commented on the baby too. Poor thing, it doesn’t feel like shopping today.  It must be tired. I'm glad that's not my baby.

If the public schools want to focus on abstinence, they should teach sex education with the soundtrack of a crying baby in the background. I’m telling you, those kids would be so frazzled, they’d never even touch their own parts, let alone someone else’s. That’s what abstinence education needs, a lot of crying babies. But why stop there, why not some crying babies with herpes and syphilis and shit? If you want to put the fear of God in them, then make it something worth fearing.