Let’s Talk About Sex(ual Education), Baby

I’ll be honest. I know nothing about sex. To be fair, I did grow up in a conservative city and attended a Christian private school for 13 years. When I came to The New School, I knew nothing about sex education or sexual health. The only sex-ed I had ever received was in the 8th grade, in our mandatory class-wide meeting we all had always heard about, but never thought actually existed. It was simple, we knew that it would be exactly like how the upperclassmen before had described it. They would sit us in two separate rooms; boys and girls divided and we’d talk about sex. This was the only moment in my life I’d rather be in a math class than talking about sex like Carrie Bradshaw. 

But what I didn’t know is I wouldn’t be a 13-year-old Carrie Bradshaw, and it wouldn’t be a fun girl talk session, but rather a slut-shaming and sex-negative diatribe from my school. They showed us a video about having multiple sexual partners, and how that degrades our value as a woman, and then in typical private school fashion, they gave a quick plug at an anti-abortion narrative (which, given the time and place, is fine. Extremely arguable, but understandable). What I didn’t expect was for my body to be compared to a piece of scotch tape. No, that really happened. The instructors gave us an image, they said to imagine a piece of tape, and now take that tape and put it on a bunch of people. They went on to say that the tape was no longer sticky, it was dirty, and because it was on so many people, there was no use for the tape anymore. And then they hit us with the punchline: that’s what happens when you have sex with multiple people. The year before that, the entire school attended an assembly where a man with voluminous hair and a horrible plaid shirt said “wait for steak, not beef jerky” implying that the men should wait for a fine piece of meat, not something you can buy at a 7/11. So far, my body and my sexuality were a piece of meat and scotch tape. And that’s all I knew for about 5 years. 

In the guys’ room, we never really knew what happened. They swore they would never tell us. What I do know is that they were to write questions and the teacher of that room would answer them anonymously. Every year there was a question about being gay (which I’m positive none of the students ever wrote) to which that particular faculty member would say “come and talk to us. We’ll fix that.” Yes. We’ll just patch your homosexuality real quick with a pair of multi-vitamins, some Band-Aid, and a tall glass of water. It’s really that easy. 

So all we knew was that we were heterosexual rolls of tape and deli meat. Then enter The New School, and everything changed.

I’ll admit it, I was embarrassed during my sex ed talk at The New School. I knew nothing. I had learned about sexuality and gender through the reliable source of Tumblr and my friends who did not identify as straight, but there was still so much more I knew I needed to learn. People have sex. People have always had sex. I began to wonder why my previous school didn’t want to admit that. Why didn’t they teach us about practicing safe sex, what to do when you have an STD, or what the body looks like? I get that they didn’t have to by law and that it wasn’t their jobs, but if they are going to talk about sex, why didn’t anyone read a quick Wiki-How on sex ed? Now, I’m not saying they needed to dive into the wonders of the female orgasm or sexual pleasure at 11:40 am on a random Wednesday to a bunch of rat faced tweens, but they owed it to us to not compare our bodies to products you can find in a grocery aisle. We at least deserved that. The New School was out here throwing condoms at us and talking about consent, sex positivity, and sexuality without even skipping a step. It was fantastic. 

This isn’t a rant on the problematic past of my school or my awful experience, but it is a call to talk about sexual education. If you don’t know something, look it up. And if that doesn’t work, then ask a friend or an adult you trust (I know I sound like an awful PSA commercial, but it is true). If you’re eighteen and you still can’t talk to your parents or your family about sex, then find some friends or a professor. Somebody you know will always be willing to talk about it. Sex isn’t bad and you’re not a bad person for wanting to have sex with someone you trust (or someone random), but if we’re going to have sex, shouldn’t we be able to talk about safe ways to do it? Luckily, I know a lot more about sexual education because of The New School’s unspoken open policy to talk about, but I wonder if I wouldn’t if I had chosen to go to another school, and I wonder if any of my friends in other universities are still confused. The point here isn’t to shame anybody or ridicule them, but it is to start an open conversation about what sex is and how it can be done. Have a conversation, watch a video, educate yourselves and don’t ever be ashamed about your sexual life or preferences, because we’re not scotch tape or beef jerky, and to quote Michael Scott, “sometimes you just gots to get your freak on!” 

• sex ed; sexual education