Sex wasn’t addressed in my school until I was in middle school. The subject was so hush-hush, I remember boys speaking about it through giggles. Sexuality was a thick mist everyone could feel around them but were too afraid to ask what it was. I felt that talking about sex was as if I were swimming through a sewage pipe – something you are most definitely not supposed to do.
I personally thank my mother for my first sex ed experience. Sex was never a taboo in my household. In fact, at age thirteen I felt more of a prude than my mother who so openly spoke about sexuality. It started with a movie. I remember cartoon babies crawling across the screen and a pregnant lady popping them out like tic tacs. It was an awesome sex ed video. I would watch the movie again and again, marveled by the animation and the playful babies. At one point, I remember a woman standing out of a bathtub and a neutral male voice saying out loud: “This is a vagina.”
I had a wonderful beginning when it came to sex.
Not everyone is so lucky.
To this day, I laugh at my first formal form of sex ed in school. My first homework was to get anatomically correct images of vaginas. That seemed straight forward enough. Next step, looking up the word vagina in a dictionary and writing down the definition. Final step, becoming an instant sexologist at age thirteen. But as we all know; copying definitions from the dictionary didn’t help anyone understand their genitals any better.
Fast forward to my junior year in high school. I was already a well-informed feminist that realized how my first form of sex ed had failed me. I took into my hands the task of talking about sexuality to my classmates. What followed still makes me smile to this day.
One day, our teacher didn’t show up. The first thing I remember is a girl saying out loud with a shocked expression: “Girls can masturbate?!”
Since that day, every time we had a free period, we would talk about sex. At first, everyone was really uncomfortable. I remember standing in front of my class and explaining where it was. I couldn’t believe a bunch of fifteen and sixteen year olds didn’t even know what it was.
During breaks, I would have female classmates get close to me. From time to time, I would have classmates confess they would masturbate but felt too ashamed to publicly talk about it. Other girls would insinuate it but were too afraid to admit it and be labelled as a slut.
Periods, masturbation, virginity, consent, sex, sexuality. All was discussed in a non-judgmental environment. I even remember a classmate of mine talking about blowjobs. Some would talk about their personal experiences with sex or other ideas such as sexual fantasies. The conversation had started and nothing could stop it.
Sex was discussed so openly that we eventually grew tired of it. That’s how it ended. We binge talked about sex so openly and thoroughly, there was nothing more to add to it. It was no longer taboo. All questions had been asked. All answers had been offered. It was a matter of self-exploration from that point on.
To this day, I thank these free periods in high school. I am a person who is by no means scared off by words such as: penis, vagina, labia, sex, or porn. I am able to talk so freely of these things because at a critical point in my life I had been given the liberty to do so. I realized that I was not alone in this journey and felt a great surge of happiness in sharing the experience.
I realize, however, not everyone has this open space.
It saddens me to realize that the majority of teens will not have a safe space to openly discuss topics that are considered taboo. Most will rely on misinformed myths or misleading pornography found in the internet. Creating these spaces is hard and takes a lot of courage, but if we don’t take the first step then no one will. The thing I learned most is that, in the end, sex is just another human trait. It’s important to be informed and to inform the ones around us.
Never be ashamed of your sexuality. Never be ashamed of your body. Sex is as normal as sleeping. There is no reason why we should ever be ashamed of discussing the topic like any other thing.
Start a dialogue. Ask a question. It’s time we create more open spaces.
With love,
Chantal.
