Making the Natural...Unnatural

In 2011, I was a thirteen-year-old with a mop of curly black hair that I lazily tied into a messy bun every morning. I wore a little too much eyeliner and was rampant with curiosities, questions, and insecurities – you know how tweens are. I had just begun the first few weeks of my high school career and was beginning to realize that my next four years were going to be just slightly different than those I grew up watching in Disney Channel’s original movies. While Troy and Gabriella endured song-filled, drama ridden days at East High, I would routinely wake up, put on a pair of knee socks, a white polo and a plaid wool skirt, and skip off to a conservative private all-girls Catholic high school.

Despite the stark lack of singing basketball players and theatrical divas dressed exclusively in pink, my high school career went relatively smoothly. I had healthy relationships with an amazing group of friends, immersed myself in drama and art, and had all the necessary resources to pursue success in my future collegiate endeavors. There was, however, one part of me that, come graduation, left high school starkly unprepared: my sexuality.  

It’s a rather universally known fact that sexual education classes are most teenagers’ worst nightmares. They include all of the awkward giggling, confusing diagrams, cringe-worthy VHS videos from the 90s, and, if you were lucky, the coveted practice of putting condoms on bananas. As cringe-worthy as it may have been at the time, many can agree that it served its purpose; sex ed gave a basic introduction to the birds and bees and the anatomy of both sexes, and provided students with a foundation of knowledge.

My alma mater, like many other Catholic and conservative institutions, implemented a very strict abstinence only “curriculum.” While there was no course entitled or dedicated to sexual education, seniors were required to enroll in Christian Lifestyles, which discussed the role of prayer and religion within the Catholic family. In this course, there was only one chapter that mentioned sex, defining it as a “necessary means of procreation” to be intimately shared between a married man and woman. Emphasis was placed on learning how to create a healthy relationship with a significant other until the unification of marriage. Throughout the course, every teacher reminded us that “abstinence is the most successful and acceptable form of contraception until the night following a marriage ceremony.” Female pleasure or enjoyment of sex was never mentioned. We were told neither what to expect when we lost our virginities nor what consent was or why it was important. Themes involving sexual intercourse in any context other than matrimony were avoided in most history and literature classes, and classes teaching art and humanities were barred from showing pieces that provoked any type of “promiscuous thinking.”

The direct consequence of this on students’ mental health, sense of empowerment, and development of individual identity were extremely visible and jarring to me.

One morning senior year, a good friend of mine pulled me into the bathroom in tears. She came from a very conservative family – she began telling me – so she was uneasy about losing her virginity to her boyfriend of two years. Despite feelings of fear, confliction and ambiguity, she finally decided to go ahead with her boyfriend – albeit unsuccessfully. Like many other girls’ first times, it ended in crying and grimacing from pain and discomfort. She didn’t know that many women experience the same their first times. She was completely unfamiliar with her anatomy and what foreplay was, including its importance as a precursor for sexual activity. She even told me that she thought the pain she experienced was God’s way of punishing her for her sinful decision, and that it was enough to deter her from sexual intercourse until her wedding night.  

I vividly remember another moment, sitting in a school-wide assembly honoring various guest speakers during my sophomore year. One of the speakers began her talk with a bubble-gum analogy, in which they explained that each virgin woman is like an untouched, wrapped piece of bubble gum. Once the gum is unwrapped and chewed, it’s thrown out and disregarded; the longer the gum is chewed, the more flavorless and distorted it becomes. I sat quietly listening in my school’s theatre as my femininity and sexuality were stripped down and compared to a used item of food – a useless, unwanted piece of garbage. The assembly concluded with a game of “The Wheel of Consequences,” which, as the name might lend, was a terrible spin off of “The Wheel of Fortune.” Student volunteers were invited to spin the wheel that landed on like teenage pregnancy, STDs, and emotional trauma. Only 10 percent of the wheel, if not less, was marked, "no consequences." By the time I graduated high school, I took exams testing me on “why abortion and homosexuality are wrong” and why those who “engage in premarital sex are condemned to a life of shame.”

And allow me to clarify – I don’t think abstinence on its own is a problem. I support, respect, and fully believe in the personal decision to practice abstinence if it’s made by an autonomous individual with all the right facts. What I do find problematic, however, are:

A) Abstinence-only education.

B) The outright denial of resources, information, and counseling regarding sex and sexuality to over 500 girls aged 13-18 at my school.

C) The shaming and ostracism of girls and young women based on their sexual opinions, experiences, or preferences.

At the end of the day, sex is a natural part of life that many people experience at some point in their lives, regardless of whether or not they’ve received a comprehensive education on the matter. Yet, we live in a society that thinks avoiding the topic of conversation will make it go away. We live in a society that shows sex on television and media more frequently than it is talked about across schools in the United States.

The reality of the matter is that each year brings 750,000 teenage pregnancies in the United States, of which up to 82% are unintended. The reality of the matter is that only 24 states require any type of sex education, and only 18 of those states require a mention of contraception in their sex ed programs. The reality of the matter is that only 13 of those states require the information presented to be medically accurate.

Let us also not forget that these laws and statistics refer and apply only to public, non-religious institutions. Do the math.

I’m thankful that as I’m growing into adulthood, I can see changes in the way society views and talks about sex. I’m grateful that today’s children are being raised during a time when it’s perfectly normal to have two moms and different shapes of female bodies are represented and celebrated.

But that’s not to say we don’t still have a long way to go. For many girls, myself included, sex-ed is the only time and place to receive important information regarding consent, contraception, and sexuality. It can serve as the foundational platform for building healthy, pleasurable sex lives, and fundamentally change the relationship they have with sex as they grow out of adolescence and into adulthood.

More often than not, abstinence-only education is ineffective in achieving what it claims to achieve. Yet, we’re still paying for it. To put it all into perspective: between 1982 and 2017, the government spent more than $2 billion on abstinence-only education. Between 2017 and 2018 alone, that government has spent approximately $85 million.

When schools, parents, and communities combat drunk, reckless driving among high school students, they neither ban nor discourage driving in general. Instead, they provide them with statistics, address the reality of peer pressure, and suggest alternatives such as sleeping over a friend’s house, taking an Uber, or designating a sober driver. STD and pregnancy prevention cannot successfully be achieved through the denial of resources and information, nor the comdenation of sexual activity or expression of sexuality.

Sex and sexuality are spectrums. There is no cookie-cutter, black-and-white way to view sex. They are boundless, unique experiences to each and every person that should be addressed as an open-minded discussion. Adolescents are going to be curious about sex and their own sexuality – it’s simply a fact of psychology and natural biology and a beautiful and natural part of life. Schools, governments, and individuals need to recognize that, as there should never be any shame in making that known or celebrated.

By Sabrina Maciariello

Duke Student, wellness columnist and avocado connoisseur on the right side of the toast trend.