After Roe, teens are teaching themselves sex ed, because the adults won't

[Nevilledog]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/08/23/teen-sex-education-roe/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/C1dA6

FRANKLIN, Tenn. — Sweating in the sun, two dozen teenagers spread themselves across picnic blankets in a grassy park and prepared to discuss the facts of life they never learned in school.

Behind them on a folding table, bouquets of pamphlets offered information teachers at school would never share — on the difference between medical and surgical abortions, and how to get them. Beside the pamphlets sat items adults at school would never give: pregnancy tests and six-packs of My Way Emergency Contraceptive.

Emma Rose Smith, 17, rose from the blankets, tucked her pale-blonde hair behind her ears and turned off the music on a small, black speaker. She faced the assembled high-schoolers, all members of her newfound group, Teens for Reproductive Rights, and began talking about the nonprofit Abortion Care Tennessee. Her words hitched at first, then tumbled in a rush.

“A little bit about them,” Emma Rose said, “is they’re an organization that funds people’s abortions if they can’t afford it. Also, by the way, there’s another organization that we can also talk about later, when we give you guys, like, resources, that actually does free mail-in abortion pills.”

*snip*

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. Great they're doing this ...

but deplorable that it's necessary

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Personally, I think kids have been teaching themselves sex and all of the ways about it since

day 1.

The post does make a serious point that society / adults are failing these kids since this subject is becoming more and more taboo in many locations. Why take the risk? The same is true for those books who breach on sensitive topics too. As more and more subjects become taboo in various locations, alternate sources to this information (the taboo information) will pop up and satisfy the cravings that these knowledge-starved kids want, that is, it simply drives everything underground.

[Midnight Writer]

3. I got in trouble for this when I was in High School.

My friends would talk constantly about sex, and it was clear they had no clue how things really worked "down there".

Their parents didn't teach them, the school wouldn't teach them, they were truly fumbling in the dark.

So I got some books from the library, and went through them and made an outline of the main points. "Bullet points", we would call them today.

We met in a friend's garage, I went over the bullet points, showed them pictures from the books, answered questions best I could.

Of course, word got around, and I became the school "sex expert". Lots of kids coming up and asking me questions.

Came to a screeching halt when some of the parents found out and confronted my Mother. She had a long talk with me, but was actually supportive and understanding, but told me to knock it off, that I was going to get in trouble. That ended my "career" as a teacher.

This was in the 1960s. I honestly think I helped out some of those kids.

[Hekate]

4. Three cheers for the youngsters!

[jmowreader]

5. That's how we learned it in my high school

One of my classmates was the daughter of a doctor. Dr. Thurston knew sex education in our schools was abysmal, so he taught his daughter everything there was to know about sex and ordered her to teach it to the rest of us.

Strangely enough, even though the only forms of entertainment for the impressionable yutes of St. Maries were beer, weed, sports and sex, we didn’t have one student come up pregnant the entire time we were there. And since there were less than 300 students in the whole school, if someone would have come up pregnant everyone would have known.

Funny story: I was on annual staff all three years I was in high school. One year one of us brought in this picture of a dirt road and insisted it had to be the endpapers of the book. The teacher was all, “if you insist” and put it in. None of us were going to tell her this road was where all the pot farms in Benewah County were.

[KentuckyWoman]

9. Loved your post

[snot]

6. Lately I've been shocked

to gather from various sources that many young women these days seem to be truly benighted about their own bodies. It's like Second Wave Feminism barely registered. What happed to Our Bodies, Ourselves? The Hite Report? The policy of no male orgasms 'til the females get theirs? Was it all displaced by Madison Ave.-generated hocus-poke-us telling girls that the way to empowerment was to spend fortunes in time and money transforming themselves into men's ideal sex objects?

It feels tragic.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. This is due to idiots like Greg Abbott and DeathSantis

[KentuckyWoman]

8. My husband and I taught each other sex ed.

Of course growing up on farms we already knew most. It was just figuring out how our parts fit. Of course HIV and whatever else is out now was not around then.

[Mr.Bill]

10. I remember how I learned,

Dear Penthouse,

I could hardly believe this when it happened to me, but...

[lindysalsagal]

11. Religious fanatics proudly keep their kids ignorant.

Just one more reason I hate it all.

[alphafemale]

13. The religio kids were the ones pregnant at 15

Imagine that.

[alphafemale]

12. Some adults won't because of sex assault charges.

I was in high school in the 80's and we got graphic pics of disease.

I think kids should still get that.