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This Can Only End Well
Mar. 8th, 2012 06:42 pmOh, Utah.
I really wish I’d kept the pamphlets we got in eighth grade sex ed. The cover alone was priceless: it was a closeup of the fly of a pair of jeans. A giant chain ran through the belt loops, and right in front of the zipper it was secured by a GIANT PADLOCK. It’s a good thing my mom was the kind of crazy hippie who felt that it’s totally fine for kids to know about how bodies work,* because I’d never have learned it from school.
Well, I say good luck, Utah, in your quest to let hormone-crazed adolescents learn about sex from their parents, unless their parents are as squeamish as the politicians they vote for, in which case the teenagers will learn about it from those completely reliable sources of TV, magazines, the internet, and each other. Let me know how that works out for ya.
*We never had a big formal The Sex Talk. Mom mostly answered our questions when they came up. Interestingly, while I remember her explaining things from the time I was three, so from then on I could explain mechanics of acquiring a little sister, I distinctly recall that it was much later—at maybe age nine—that it actually sank in how the sperm got into the vagina. My brain had glossed over it before that. And I remember it clearly because suddenly, whole new aspects of the culture were now opened up to me. I still can recall the first time I understood that two sitcom characters were joking about THE SEX. Yes, I was kind of slow on the uptake in some respects. Still am.
I really wish I’d kept the pamphlets we got in eighth grade sex ed. The cover alone was priceless: it was a closeup of the fly of a pair of jeans. A giant chain ran through the belt loops, and right in front of the zipper it was secured by a GIANT PADLOCK. It’s a good thing my mom was the kind of crazy hippie who felt that it’s totally fine for kids to know about how bodies work,* because I’d never have learned it from school.
Well, I say good luck, Utah, in your quest to let hormone-crazed adolescents learn about sex from their parents, unless their parents are as squeamish as the politicians they vote for, in which case the teenagers will learn about it from those completely reliable sources of TV, magazines, the internet, and each other. Let me know how that works out for ya.
*We never had a big formal The Sex Talk. Mom mostly answered our questions when they came up. Interestingly, while I remember her explaining things from the time I was three, so from then on I could explain mechanics of acquiring a little sister, I distinctly recall that it was much later—at maybe age nine—that it actually sank in how the sperm got into the vagina. My brain had glossed over it before that. And I remember it clearly because suddenly, whole new aspects of the culture were now opened up to me. I still can recall the first time I understood that two sitcom characters were joking about THE SEX. Yes, I was kind of slow on the uptake in some respects. Still am.
