What's Your Story?
"So I was talking to my boss/neighbor/mother figure and she was telling me a story about her daughter, who is two years younger than I and another one of our neighbors. The two girls, who would have been in 6th grade at the time, were taking sex ed. One of the girls mothers walked in on them talking about oral sex, and she questioned them asking if they knew what it was and where they had heard it. Their response was pretty cute "mom, we learned about it in sex ed. It’s when you talk about sex." - Portland, ME teen.
From April 2, 2008: "I’ve often wondered what it would be like if we taught young people swimming in the same way we teach sexuality. If we told them that swimming was an important adult activity, one that they will all have to be skilled at when they grow up, but we never talked with them about it. We never showed them the pool. We just allowed them to stand outside closed doors and listen to all the splashing. Occasionally, they might catch a glimpse of partially clothed people going in and out of the door to the pool and maybe they’d find a hidden book on the art of swimming, but when they asked a question about how swimming felt or what it was about they would be greeted with blank or embarrassed looks (or told they weren’t old enough to know.)
Suddenly, when they turned 18, we would fling open the doors to the pool and they would jump in. Miraculously some might learn to tread water, but many would drown."
- Excerpted from a speech by Elizabeth Canfield, sexuality educator
From March 21, 2008:
"A funny thing happened in my house this week. The news was on and they were talking about the Eliot Spitzer* incident. My daughter is the youngest in a house where we are very open. Her question to me was 'Why is he in trouble?' I realized that in all the conversations we've had about sex, she had no idea that prostitution was against the law. When I told her that prostitution was illegal, she asked, 'Well, then why do people do it?' I realized that I just took it for granted that she knew it was illegal. I don't know if I am the only one that has had this come up, but I'm sure I'm not. I truly just assumed she knew that paying for sex was illegal. Even with teenagers, after all these years of parenting, it is a learning process."
- Rockland County, NY parent
*Eliot Spitzer was the former Governor of New York State who was forced to resign after the press reported that he had solicited sexual services from an escort agency.
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