It’s safe to say I was naive in high school. I was your typical good girl. I got perfect grades, was a part of all the clubs, and spent my weekends watching movies and going to the mall with my best friend. I never really had a desire to rebel, but if I did, I would have thought of sex as a way to do that. It seemed forbidden; something that no one was doing. Any time sex was talked about it was a joke, never a meaningful act or an ordinary expression of feelings two people have for each other.
To clarify, I went to a public high school in a tiny town where my class size was roughly eighty people. I thought that sex was this scary thing that I couldn’t fathom happening around me because no one talked about it. Our sex ed was more of a “read it yourself” chapter of a health textbook. That basically led me to believe that if I had sex I would probably get an STD or just get pregnant no matter what. That’s not okay. I was afraid to ask anyone about it because I was living in an extremely isolated, conservative town that I didn’t think had any advice for me.
It was pretty typical of people to graduate from high school and stay in my town; getting married and starting a family right after high school. I think that partly influenced why I thought pre-marital sex, or casual sex with more than just the one person that you would spend your life with, seemed so wrong. All I wanted was for someone to tell me that sex was okay. I wanted to hear it was allowed and common, rather than something to be ashamed of.
I graduated and made the huge decision about where I wanted to be for the next four years. I chose a city that was the complete opposite of the place I had been for most of my life. I started to think…if I could make a choice like that one, that I knew was right for me, why couldn’t I make my own decision about the role sex played in my life?
Here I am in my second semester of college. I’m not scared by the prospect of seeing free condoms in many campus buildings. I don’t shy away from having important conversations, like those about sexual health. I feel very informed about safe sex and I see it as a positive act that everyone should be able to make free choices about.
I hated feeling like I was trapped in someone else’s opinion about something that applied to my own body. Looking back at this time in my life, I see that I have grown a lot. I had a fear of sex and talking about it because I didn’t think I was allowed to know that much about the topic. My biggest take away from this learning experience has been one thing: Being informed is powerful.