Remember when you learned how to put on a condom properly? Or the time when you watched a video with way-too-graphic images of people with STIs? It was impossible to leave sex-education class without knowing just a little too much about your body.
September 26 to 30 is National Sex Education Week of Action. In New Jersey, we are lucky enough to have state-mandated, comprehensive sex education. That means all students in NJ public schools must receive age-appropriate information on all aspects of sexuality, including gender stereotypes, sexual orientation, abstinence, condoms and contraception. If you went to public school in NJ, you (hopefully!) came out of your sex-ed class with a pretty good understanding of how to be safe.
However, if sex ed is anything besides informative, it’s memorable. High school sex-ed classes can sometimes be a melting pot for uncomfortable subjects, with teachers and students fumbling over what to say next. But, at least for me, I’m thankful I had it. I left my sex-ed class in high school with an awareness and an understanding of sexuality that I might not have otherwise gotten.
In honor of this week, I collected some of the most memorable moments from high school sex education classes. Read on for some hilarious stories provided by students and their sex-ed teachers!
“We didn’t get sex ed until senior year (don’t even get me started on why this is ridiculous), so by that time, everyone in the class knew each other very well. The curriculum required that the teachers show us a video of a woman giving birth (and trust me, it showed EVERYTHING) and none of us were looking forward to it at all. My teacher tried to make it less awkward for us by making funny comments, but this of course just made it worse. The entire thing was like torture, and it felt like hours before the baby was finally born. Right as the baby finally came out, we all sighed in relief, thankful it was over. Then, unexpectedly, my teacher hit the rewind button, and ZOOM! The baby went right back in. It was like something out of a horror movie. We all groaned and looked away, but what we had seen could not be unseen….my teacher laughed for close to twenty minutes after that, but none of us thought it was funny.”
“My sex ed class was pretty good. I don’t really remember any ridiculous moments or awkward situations… Except this one time:We were talking about the menstrual cycle, and this troublemaker guy raised his hand and asked if it was safe to have sex with a girl who has her period. So I’m thinking duh, of course it’s fine, it’s just blood but it won’t hurt you or anything. But then my teacher says, ‘No, absolutely not. If you have sex with a girl while she has her period, the suction of the penis could push the blood back up the uterus, up the fallopian tubes, and into the ovaries. It could all get clogged up.’ I was completely astonished that an adult would think that!”
“My freshman year of high school, I had yet to even KISS a boy, let alone even THINK about sex (I was a late bloomer to say the least). In my health class, our teacher passed out a handout with a list of reproductive body parts. We had to go through and label them “M” if the parts were only found on males, “F” for the female-only parts, and “B” if the body part could be found on both males and females. When we were finished, our teacher decided we would go around the room, answering each question aloud. ‘Urethra – Both. Penis – Male. Vagina – Female.’ Sounds pretty basic, pretty simple. Well it was my turn, and I was confident in my answer. I had to report to the class whether the clitoris was a male, female or ‘both’ body part. I mean, really this was such a dumb assignment… ‘Both!’ I exclaimed. Because boys AND girls have a clitoris, right? Wrong. Not only did my classmates look at my funny, but my teacher looked pretty alarmed as well. Some people even thought I was trying to be funny but that was NOT the case. I was just a clueless freshman completely unaware of my own “down there.” Lesson learned. I now know that ONLY females have a clitoris…”
A Word from the Experts…
From a professional sex educator: “I get asked a lot (A LOT) of questions about sex myths. Most of them have to do with Mountain Dew (no, it does not lower sperm count) and how to not get pregnant. Everyone has a different thing that they swear worked for their best friend’s sister’s manicurist. One that I hear a lot is if a woman jumps up and down after sex, she won’t get pregnant. This is ridiculous. Once, I had a male student swear it works when his girlfriend does it. I explained to him—and the rest of the class—that the sperm’s goal is to reach the cervix (and onward). If the average man ejaculates at 25-30 miles an hour, that sperm is being shot to its destination immediately. The woman wouldn’t have time to get up and jump fast enough, and even if she did gravity doesn’t work as a contraceptive. ‘We’re not like piggy banks!’ I told him. He looked stunned and, after a second, asked, ‘Where can I get those free condoms, again?’”
From a professional sex educator: “I remember one of my first programs out on my own, for a substance abuse program for teenagers. I was so nervous. I had my bag full of contraception goodies to show the group, so I could adequately explain how various methods of birth control work and what they look like. When I got to the condom demonstration part of my presentation, I was feeling pretty good. I was explaining things clearly, answering questions accurately; I even had them laughing occasionally. I held the condom, unwrapped, in one hand, and the penis model (in all its gel-mold, veiny glory) in the other. I kept my hands up in front of me, so the whole class could see the demonstration. Right at that moment, a student in the front row asked me, with a look of total teenage skepticism, ‘Did you go to college for this?’ I burst out laughing, penis in hand, and answered, ‘Sure did.’”