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.