Week Seven Blog Post

Growing up in Utah I believe I experienced a very different kind of sexual education experience than the rest of the country. I remember sitting in my health class when we covered the birds and the bee's topic and my health teacher refused to say the word sex, she would only call it intercourse. I always thought that it was a little ridiculous that my health teacher was too embarrassed to even say the word sex, so obviously I wasn't going to learn much from her. I was taught with the abstinence only sex education method, we touched briefly on condoms and contraception but only about how ineffective they could be and how we would ultimately contract a disease and die if we used them outside of marriage. I was stunned when I heard from my cousin who lives in Detroit that her health teacher actually had them practice putting condoms on a banana. Coming from my very pure and wholesome school district I couldn't imagine how that was allowed. Sexual education through school was a joke so I had to turn to others for information regarding sex. I first heard about sex from one of my close girlfriends that was a neighbor of mine who had recently had "the talk" with her mother. We we all about twelve years old and beginning to start the wonderful journey of puberty so all of the mothers on our street decided together that it was time to start introducing "the talk" to their daughters. I was one of the last girls on my street to have the "the talk" with my mother, and by that point I just nodded uncomfortably and pretended that this was the first time I was hearing about the process of sex. I was given a basic rundown of the physicality of sex, I never knew much beyond a boys parts mingled with a girls parts and sometimes if they mingled long enough you got a baby out of it. I never even knew what a condom looked like until my senior year of high school. Sex has always been kind of a taboo to me, and I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I was raised in the LDS church, which has a big no no policy about premarital sex, and really doesn't even discuss the subject of sex beyond "it is a sacred act between a married man and woman for procreation and developing a close bond." Despite my wholesome background I have never shied away from the subject of sex. I have never really been embarrassed about it, because to me it is just a natural part of life that we should embrace and not make awkward. My mother is a nurse for a gynecologist so the female anatomy has never been a mystery to me. In fact I know a lot more about how female reproductive organs work than any person would ever want to know. My mother also felt that it was important the she allowed us into her bathroom when she was naked so that we wouldn't be ashamed or embarrassed of our bodies. My mother says that is her reasoning behind always running around our house naked, but really I think she has just secretly always wanted to become a nudist. Nevertheless if I am lucky enough to have a daughter someday I want to have that same attitude regarding sex. I want my daughter to feel comfortable about her body, and comfortable enough to talk with me about sex. I wish that when I was younger I would have had access to a lot more information regarding sex beyond just parts mingling, and I really believe that change needs to start with sexual education. If I have a daughter she is going to hear it all, even the stuff that she might not want to hear. I just think if people were more informed about sex, it wouldn't be something that you would have to be ashamed of, instead it could be something that you accept as a natural part of life and eventually really enjoy as a part of a healthy relationship.

Week five Blog Post

 Growing up throughout my k-5 school years all the way through high school I was kind of an odd kid. I started out as a tomboy and mostly hung out with boys every day until about the fifth grade. In fifth grade I started to transition from tomboy to girly girl when I made my first real girl friends. Fifth grade was also the time that boys started to become a lot more attractive to me and a lot less gross. In the fifth grade I was a part of a trio of girls that ruled the playground. We would play "The ground is lava" on the playground every day and flirt with the other boys. It was sometimes difficult for me to hang with these girls because I was still very much a tom boy, and when the girls playfully flirted from a far, I actually wanted to play sports with all of the guys.  Fifth grade was really the only time that I ever experienced what it was like to be "popular" and once I moved on to sixth grade the struggle between what other girls wanted me to be, and what I actually wanted to be resulted with me being an awkward outsider. 

Sixth and Seventh grade were really tough years for me, they were what I like to call my ugly duckling years. I don't think anyone transitions through puberty gracefully and if they do they are probably a bitch, or at least thats what I tell myself to keep up my confidence. By eighth grade my ugly duckling phase had calmed down a little and I began to settle into my group. My group was made up of a bunch of talented misfits. We were all drama and choir nerds who didn't really fit anywhere, but luckily the drama and music department is probably the most accepting department that you could join. We became a sort of family and looked out for each other, which made high school a lot less painful for all of us. I can actually say that I had a lot more positive experiences than negative during my high school years. I was never on prom royalty, or went out with the most attractive guy in school, but I did have a group of friends that made me laugh and reminded me not to take life too seriously, and I honestly think that I got a way better deal. Having great friends made my life a lot easier. However I still ran into the occasional girl drama, due to the fact that my friends were all extremely involved in the drama department. The girls that would be considered frenemies usually caused problems over things like boys, the way that you looked at them, or how long you took to respond to their text message. I realized at a very young age that frenemies are not healthy and I made sure that those girls did not stick around in my life for long. Today I can proudly say that I have zero frenemies, I only associate with people who bring positivity into my life.

I think it is really difficult for girls today to find their group and to learn for themselves which friends will stand behind them and which ones would rather see them fall. I understand how fortunate I was in making the friends that I did, and how lucky I am that my "family" of friends has stayed connected through all of these years. As I watch my younger sisters go through the stages of girlhood that I have experienced I hope that they come to understand that even one really good friend is a hundred times better than a bunch of "frenemies." I think regardless of what group you fit into during your younger years, everyone was basically doing the same thing, just trying to find acceptance so life wouldn't feel so scary. I hope that more girls come to realize this and understand that being popular isn't everything, finding friends that love and accept you for who are is really what should matter most. 

( These are my wonderful friends, I am the one on the far left sitting on my friends lap.)