ABSTINENCE Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
2005
“What did you learn at school today, lamb?” my mother said one time as she put a little snack of lumpy organic fig cookies on the kitchen table for me.

At first my mind was blank. Then finally, I remembered. “Well, in sex ed I learned how to put on a condom.”

I remember that day well. High School. Half a lifetime ago. I was around 14 years old. And at the sound of my voice using the word “condom”, my mother’s face went completely red, her cheeks got hot and her voice got really soft. She could hardly speak.

For me, it was no big deal. I’d never been embarrassed to talk about condoms. I had heard the word as early as in elementary school when I started taking sex ed in school. Back then, it was called “LAMO: Learning about Myself and Others,” otherwise known as “Green Eggs and Sperm.” That’s what the kids called it. It was taught by our gym teacher. At that young age, sex ed was mostly big charts of cross sections of reproductive organs, talking about the onset of hair under the arms, the beginnings of menstruation, and slideshows about shaving one’s legs and boys having “embarrassing” wet dreams. There was always a whole lot of giggling.

Somewhere around middle school or perhaps high school we started discussing the actual act. When I finally knew exactly what went on, with those penises and vaginas and whatnot, I was quite taken aback. It goes . . . where? And does . . . what? Ohmigod, Ohmigod. But I got over it.

Then came the slideshows. They would sit us on bleachers in the high school gymnasium and show us pictures of the most hideous STD’s known to mankind. End stage Chlamydia or untreated venereal warts. Herpes outbreaks and oozing blisters and puss of all sorts. Oh God, it was awful. Then we’d get the shpeal about condoms and boy, did we all want to use them. Every time. For the rest of our lives.

It was a condom culture. It was the 90’s, I was in high school, and I swear hardly a day went by when condoms didn’t come up in conversation or at least cross my mind. We learned about them through school, through visiting Planned Parenthood representatives, in magazines, from each other. Girls and Boys alike carried them at all times, just in case. I never ever ever ever ever contemplated having sex without one. It seemed like a no brainer.

And so, I was amazed that day to find out my mother didn’t know much about condoms. After she regained use of her voice, she raised her eyebrows and said, in a very hushed tone, “How do you put on a . . . a . . . you know?”

I grinned, then briefly took her through it. I described the clear Lexan plastic penis that we used in class, pinching the end of the condom, unwrapping, unrolling, blah blah blah. I could’ve fallen asleep talking about it. Condoms, and STDs and penises and urethras had ceased to shock me at all. But you should have seen my mother’s face when I described how to shoot spermicidal foam into a plastic vagina. I got a sort of glee making her wince with my ultra-modern education.

But that kind of sex education of yore is no more. Now it’s the W regime. Kids are to abstain. Anything else, lest a school lose its sex education funding, is not discussed. Heaven forbid we teach kids about how their own bodies work. What kinds of plumbing they have inside them. I don’t know for certain if masturbation, as a topic, can be broached in class, but intercourse must be touted as WRONG WRONG WRONG. Even alluding to the possibility of having sex outside of marriage is a no-no. Too bad for all those homosexuals who DON’T live in Massachusetts -- kids are being taught, as prescribed by W himself, that sex outside of a legal marriage is lecherous. Period.

Abstinence, as the thrust of sex education is just absurd. Sure, abstinence is the ideal way to avoid pregnancy and disease. But we are sexual creatures. And teenagers are teaming with sexual excitement, thanks to their hormonal makeup and also the messages they’re getting from the consumer culture. Britney Spears, the former queen of virgin sluts, is shaking everything she’s got in their faces, and every advertisement, for music, clothing, or even toothpaste that’s aimed at teens is sexual in some way. And they’re supposed to “Just Say No” to sexual intercourse? Like it’s that easy? Is W going to start sprinkling saltpeter in their school lunches to make it easier?

Sexual education in schools never promoted the idea of having sex. It never CAUSED kids to have sex. Kids are going to have sex either way. Doesn’t it make sense, in that case, to teach them how to avoid getting a nasty disease or have an unwanted pregnancy? Duh, what used to happen before there was sex ed and a more open social atmosphere around contraception and our bodies? Girls used to get shipped off for hush-hush abortions with coat hangers, or get forced into giving babies up for adoption, or even worse, forced into bad marriages and lifetimes of unhappiness for parents and children. Is that where W envisions us going back to?

Not a very good segue here, but I can’t help thinking of Scribby, my hombre de viva. My man. My lover. He is older than me. And he grew up before there was any kind of sex ed in schools. And even less was discussed at home. So when the topic of birth control or practicalities about sex come up between us, he gets really uncomfortable. Okay, I’ll be blunt. He gets bright red and mortified. For example, I asked him to go pick up something at Brooks Drugs the other day, a contraceptive, and he came back empty handed. He said he couldn’t bring himself to buy it, he was embarrassed. I was like, “You, embarrassed?!” Because this is a guy who just doesn’t GET embarrassed easily. But if you grow up not talking about something, the shame persists.

It makes me wonder if the upcoming generation of kids is going to be like this. Are they going to know how to be grown-up enough to buy spermicidal gel without putting a bag over their heads? Are they going to know how not to spread AIDS, or herpes, or nasty pussy diseases that could render them sterile? Yuck.


TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK about W’s new ABSTINENCE sex ed programs! And tell me about how SEX ED made a difference in YOUR life growing up! Jacooz@bimbopolitics.com

For more about Scribby, besides his embarrassment over buying contraceptives, visit www.Scribbyworld.com