Casey, right?

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Heh heh. STAFFING difficulties kept you from....

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As for horrible sex-ed, just the standard don't do it abstinence only shit here, with the one added bit that swallowing cum is not a significant source of calories - only got that little bit because somebody specifically asked.

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It would be a good inner thigh workout, to say the least. I might have to try it later.

Also, the "ladies, keep your knees closed!" line of reasoning is maddening. Yuck. He could at least have followed it up with "and keep your cock in your pocket, boys."

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Also, he also didn't understand the difference between a risk of contracting stds and actually doing so. he told story after story of "this football player came to me and told me he hadn't had intercourse but he had had oral sex, and could he get an std from that? it broke my heart to tell him that yes, he could."

i was a shy little freshman then so i didn't speak up, but i desperately wanted to be "but, wait, that only matters if his partner had an std that could be transmitted through saliva. why didn't you tell him to get tested? and to just, you know, talk with his future partners about disease risks? wouldn't that be more responsible?

but, alas, no one ever thought to think of their own accord.

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1. We were taught that no birth control is 100% effective and the only way to know if you might be pregnant is to have sex. (Interesting logic there.) So, if you have sex, you must -- MUST -- immediately assume you're now pregnant.

(I raised my hand. 'What if you've had a hysterectomy?' The anger on the woman's face was hilarious. 'Yeah, all right, you got me.')

2. Life begins at conception. Uh.

3. Ah, the demos: we did the sticky tape one. We did 'love is like a house, and sex is the roof, so you definitely should add that last.' It wasn't so much that the metaphors were tortured as that they just didn't make any goddamn sense. If my relationship is like a house... why would I live in a house with no roof?

4. We were told we had only one true love partner, period, and that if we ever -- ever -- had sexual contact with anyone other than that person, we would not be able to adequately bond with our true, married love.

5. We were told that even having sexual thoughts about someone we saw would cause us to recall those images/people at the moment of orgasm, meaning we wouldn't be able to have fulfilling, meaningful, good sex with our one true partner, so we absolutely needed to not check each other out.

6. We were then told we could sign totally voluntary abstinence pledges. No, there was absolutely no coercion at all, why do you ask?

Things we did not learn about: the biomechanics of sex, birth control (what it is and how to use it), STIs, what to do if you're pregnant (although we covered stages of pregnancy), what to do if you're raped, how to make good decisions re: sex, what counts as sexual activity, or anything useful at all.

At the end of it all, we were given surveys, questions about -- How much do you know about ____ after this programme, etc. I kept scribbling -- Not applicable -- I didn't learn anything. Eventually, I got so fed up that I asked the teacher if I could stop taking the survey and write a letter instead. In the forty minutes or so I had left in class, I scrawled a five-page missive accusing them of propaganda, misinformation, lies, and general incompetence, arguing that teenagers needed honesty, real (useful) information, and an open dialogue if there was any hope of our ever becoming responsible about sex. I also argued against the anti-abortion angle, as, uh, okay, great, now what to we do if we become pregnant? (See: correlation between infanticide and a mother's secrecy re: the pregnancy. Yeah.)

I never got a response. The teacher was amused, though.

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And in ninth grade health class, we had two coaches for teachers. One showed us a video about how evil abortion was. Later, I heard rumors that one or both coaches were banging their female athletes.

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@lalaland13: wouldn't be surprised if the same thing wasn't happening in my school. the coaches were a little . . . too close with some of the female athletes, in my opinion.

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