Sex Education

My global studies classes were discussing diseases in history today.  Naturally we started off with the black plague and I was pleasantly surprised that there was some spirited discussion on how diseases are passed and why some carriers (like fleas) are completely immune to its effects.  The black plague discussion led to modern diseases such as hepatitis and its high prevalence in college students; as my students are soon-to-be-graduating seniors, this was quite apropros.  Since one of my students did her senior project on HPV and her panel presentation was within a few hours of our class, she also piped up that students should also consider getting the Gardasil shot to protect them against this steadily rising STD.

Nothing perks up a class discussion like the merest hint of sex.  The black plague was cool for its gross-out factor but STDs!  Now there were 30+ students with lots of questions they wanted to ask.  Some questions were purely anatomical while others were obviously based on real-life experience:  "What if my friend did..."  Change the "friend" to "I" and fill in the blank.  And the new generation think they are so clever and sophisticated.  They can't even create an original story.


This is not the first time that I've had discussions with my students about sex.  In the 10th grade Health Core class I introduce the body systems and when we get to reproduction, questions abound.  Now my students are far from innocent; you don't grow up in our neighborhood without learning a thing or two about life, but for all their street smarts and the language that goes along with that, many of them couldn't even bring themselves to ask their questions.  They struggled to actually describe the behaviors in question and couldn't even verbally identify the body parts involved in said behaviors.  The embarrassment!  The horror!  And these are future health care providers?

After too many moments of hemming and hawing, I finally told them to get the questions out and have done with it; if they had a question worth asking, I was going to answer it and nothing they said would embarrass or upset me.   One brave soul finally spoke up and asked, "Can you get an STD if you, uh, masturbate someone?"  Naturally the class erupted with nervous laughter.  I replied, "With your hand or with your mouth?"  Yes, I can create moments of complete and utter silence.

I am always startled by how naive some of the questions are--even the questions that come from students who I know are already sexually active.  It's sad to think that they can't talk about their body parts without giggling, let alone have a mature discussion with their partners about contraception, yet they are already engaging in the behavior.  Few of the students said they were able to have any kind of open conversation with their parents about anything remotely sexual, so they don't bother trying.  That saddens me even more.