I was clearly born a hopeless, incurable but happy romantic and I cannot say that it bothers me. For some reason, I never read any of the popular Mills and Boon novels in my day, even though many young people at the time got their sense of love and relationships through those stories. Yet I had and still have an idealized view of the world and of relationships.
Anyhow, as I experienced life, the need for the subject of sex to be openly, systematically and objectively discussed and studied (yes I meant studied), especially with and by younger people became more and more important to me. It had occurred to me along the way that not knowing many things concerning the subject was an injury that could have had much more dire consequences than it may have had on me, had the universe not conspired in my favour. Take this short story of a young lady for instance:
It was in the mid-eighties. She was in her mid-teens and she was a virgin. She had no knowledge of condoms and whether they were even a thing, much less about the foaming tablet until she agreed to be the community bad boy’s girlfriend. She had no idea what it meant to be someone’s girlfriend, but this boy was a few years older and seemingly wiser, plus he was well known and quite a charmer.
At the time, her shapely body was taking form and many of the boys in her community, including much older males were already making comments about her body, telling her she was pretty, throwing sexual gestures and jokes her way and in various ways, reminding her daily of her sexual appeal and their dark desires. It was only a matter of time that she would fall into one of these arms. So, despite her naivety, she sensed there was something sexual required of her as a girlfriend. To her mind, why not the charming boy in the community.
When he took her to an empty house one night, she followed dutifully and strangely, without fear. The experience was neither exciting nor pleasurable. The pain was significant but bearable. The boy, obviously more experienced, knew about the pain and reassured her. He had pushed a tablet into her and had told her it would prevent her from getting pregnant. She believed him and took his word for what it was worth. Luckily it was over before she knew what was to be done. The pain did come and she saw some blood later but that was all there was to it. She did not get pregnant. Not a soul ever found out how she got her first lesson in sex and who taught it. She did not get pregnant and that was all that mattered. And she was in her mid teens.
In my part of the globe, there is continuing resistance to sex education in schools. At home, it is still mostly taboo to speak about such things even among adults. Some conspiracy theories even claim sex education is a ploy to spread the reach of the ‘rainbow’. Suppose there is any truth to that, should that not be more reason why we should be deliberate about talking; not simply about faith and morals, but about lived experiences including about sex and their social, economic, physical, emotional, psychological implications, good, bad or ugly?
Several years back, my son then about 5 or 6 asked me why his “willy” was much smaller than that of his dad. By the way, we long ditched the pseudonym for the actual word ‘penis’. He was visibly upset about the unfairness of that particular resource allocation. Rather than shut him down I explained, that it grew with age, then I took steps to make some changes in our domestic practices. Over the years, we have spoken about sexual topics including condoms. I concede that on one occasion when I tried to talk him into learning how to use a condom, he protested. What he did not know was that I needed the lesson myself. Good thing is, at least the subject was not off the table. When he was told at church that it was better to abstain from sex until after marriage and saw his (relatively) young church mate get married to an equally young woman, he came home to have a conversation with me. We opened up the subject of marriage before sex and questioned the rationale, concluding that it was a question bordering on morality and not necessarily an objective question. We discussed why marriage was the reference, rather than say, getting a degree or having a profession or being in a position to be responsible for the consequences of ones actions before sex for instance. We also discussed the value of examining sex in relation to those other considerations. We spoke about the implications and effects of sex. That babies are not the only outcomes of sex. That in fact, one could argue that babies are the least of the worries when it comes to sex, even considering the period of pregnancy, childbearing and the possible medical complications surrounding both baby and mother, not to speak of the socioeconomic and psychological effects on the unprepared.
I never had any of these conversations with any of my parents, so sex education was for me as was and still is for many young people, akin to that of the young woman in the story or any other rendition of it. Today, we contend not only with so-called community bad boys or girls whom everyone knows. We contend also with the various means by which technology brings instruction to the bedrooms of the present generation. And I wonder, are we really better of not speaking about penises, vaginas and sex?
photo credit: curiousdesire.com
