"Gotta be safe out here...lol"

Green benches line the walls of the Applebees waiting area.  Windows cover by cream colored blinds are dimly lit by flickering Busch Light signs.  Top 40 music plays from the speakers over our head, some song we didn’t recognize.  We smell French fries and cheeseburgers and see waitresses scurrying from left and right with full drink trays, in a hurry to server all of their customers.  Crayons sit on the empty host stand, inviting to a college student that has been cooped up in their dorm room due to the snow.  Maryville, Missouri makes crayons interesting.  Seems innocent enough, right? Wrong.  Not when my friends and I are in town.  Melancholy atmospheres don’t suit us well, especially when it’s one of our birthdays.  Here we are, freshmen at Northwest Missouri State University, celebrating a birthday and reminiscing on the fact that we have almost made it through our first year of college.  Keyaira, the birthday girl, and I dressed similarly for the occasion.  We both wore black leather motorcycle jackets along with jeans and knee high boots.  We were hardly dressed for the weather.

The snow was deadly.  Piles of white fluff passed our ankles and almost kept Satty, Keyaira’s 1994 Saturn from making the trek from campus to Applebee’s on that frigid winter evening.  Tire marks in the deep snow let us know that the trip was indeed possible.  We saw tracks leaving, but none coming back.  Nonetheless, the cabin fever was getting to us and we had to leave campus by any means necessary.

After sitting in the waiting area of the restaurant for over an hour, we finally made our way to the center of the restaurant to a table large enough to seat twenty people.  The conversation inevitably turned to sex.  It made Keyaira and I reminisce on our first weekend on the Northwest Missouri State University campus.  After we were all settled in to our dorm rooms, we took what we called a field trip around campus to visit one another’s dorm rooms.  Keyaira lived on the fifth floor of Millikan Hall with Mi-Keya.  To say the very least, Mi-Keya was a character.  While showing off her side of the room, a condom fell from under her purple and white plaid pillow.  It took us all by surprise for a bit, but then we realized we were all in college and she was really taking a safety precaution.  That wintery evening at dinner, Mi-Keya’s random condom came up in conversation.  For whatever reason, she was carrying it around with her that day.  She says it was a reminder to stay safe, because being in college doesn’t make us invincible.  The birthday dinner was a bit more than a dinner.  It was a short lesson in sex education.  The conversation was very mature, with the exception of the comical reference to what came to be known as Mi-Keya’s “pet condom.”

After several hours of eating wings and French fries, our evening finally came to an end.  We shared several laughs.  It was a night to remember.  As we climbed back into Keyaira’s Saturn in an attempt to escape the cold, we discussed how Mi-Keya’s condom had followed us over the course of the year.  It seems a bit unorthodox to have a “pet condom”, but it serves as a gentle reminder of a collegiate version of sex education.

Matt Johnson, Human Sexuality Professor

Sex education seems like it is always a difficult topic for Americans to talk about.  Whether it is a simple as the “sex talk” between parents and children, course offered in secondary schools and even in college, it is usually pushed under the rug to be dealt with at another time.  Recently, President Obama changed to protocol of former President Bush and lifted the “abstinence only” ban from sex education in secondary schools.  In post-secondary schools such as Northwest, sex education courses are offered on campus.  Mr. Matthew Johnson teaches Human Sexuality, a class that goes in depth about sex education, including knowledge of both male and female reproductive organs, pregnancy and all other elements included with sex.

In college, the course is very open.  Most college students are between 18 and 24 years of age and have been seasoned with the sex talk in one way or another.  While in class, Mr. Johnson has no concrete boundaries concerning the direction of the conversation.  He believes that at our ages, we should be mature enough to discuss sex.  In each Human Sexuality class, he makes the students chant “penis and vagina,” hoping to familiarize them with the terms and make it even easier to discuss sex.  Classes are less explicit, however, if one of his children are present.  His daughter attended class with him and he says he noticeably changed his vocabulary.  His daughter is 3-years-old.  Children, toddlers especially,  repeat everything they hear even if they have no idea what it means.  He says it would be disturbing to find his 3-year-old chanting “penis and vagina,” knowing that she had no idea what she was saying.  There is an obvious line that has to be crossed when discussing sex with different age groups.

Class discussions are far more informal than PowerPoint presentations.  PowerPoints are informative and present the facts.  Class discussions show the variety of opinions on certain facts.

Does sex education start at home? Part II

My parents did not really have the sex talk with me. All I ever heard was "Don't have sex, you'll get pregnant." It was more of a scare tactic. My mom was a teen mom and she used herself as an example and guaranteed my sister and I that we would get pregnant too if we had sex. That was a horrible way to talk to your kids about sex.

If I ever decide to have children I would use a completely different method. My mom's way didn't teach me anything and now at almost 20 years old, I can't discuss simple things like a kiss or birth control with my mom. She'd lose her marbles. As a result of her method, I'm not as open with her as sex as I would like to be so I would take a different route. When the time comes to teach my children about sex I will teach them what is relevant at the time. As our generations change, I can't really say what I could tell them but it would definitely be information that will be important to their lives.

Does sex education start at home? Part I

The sex talk should start as soon as the baby comes out of the womb. I talk to my 5-month-old nephew about sex. Granted, he doesn't understand it quite yet, it makes me comfortable with the idea of talking to him about it later in life. I think my generation will have a variety of ways they approach the sex talk with the next generation. My age group is in an awkward phase right now. So many people talk openly about sex and a lot don't, and that will carry on to adulthood. I think the next generation will be miseducated about sex because in the Human Sexuality class of 50 people, there are so many different views about sex and how it should be talked about and how soon it should be talked about.  I am not sure that sex education will evolve very much from where it is now; all the information kids need about sex is in the media. If anything, there will be a class or TV show introduced about STIs. Eventually my or the next generation will be so consumed by STIs that it will be an issue that will have to be addressed if sex education is continuously ignored. 

Generation X

The nineties seemed to have been a confusing time period for American society.  The “Ugly Eighties” had just come to an end, and the world was all about peace and love in the seventies and in decades before, baby boomers came about. By the time the nineties had come around, society was confused.  Due to the free-willed nature of society in the previous decades, sex was a taboo subject. 

In the nineties, MTV produced a series called “Sex in the 90s.”  There was a particular episode aired entitled “The Greatest Sex of All.”  The episode focused on abstinence and explaining its importance.  An article found on The Huffington Post website focuses on Christine O’Donnell, a tea partier from Delaware, who made an appearance on the show.  O’Donnell made quite an impact during her appearance, saying that “masturbation is not a moral substitute for sex…you cannot masturbate without lust,” and also quoted The Bible.  She was highly criticized for the episode, partially due to the fact that she later opted to hold a political position in Delaware, and partially due to her statements about sex.  Most people that talked about sex publically during the time were publicized, regardless their position on the subject.  The entire series was considered a bad idea on MTV’s part, according to the article’s spectators.  It seemed to encourage having sex, as if it were the “in” thing to do in the nineties.

Not all people shied away from the topic of sex, however.  An article published in the Marie Claire magazine took an opposite approach.  They made sure to turn heads with the title of the article, “Sex of Generation X, Sex in the 90s.”  The article discussed the people that were more free willed during the era.  Some women were feminists and believed they should keep their clothes on at all times a never speak a word about sex.  The article d talked about the women that were early versions of the women from “Sex and the City.”  Some women were not afraid to express themselves sexually and were prepared to embrace any remarks that may have been made about their characters.

The nineties was a time period that seemed to not have a “happy medium.”  All people were either for or against having sex.  This may be due to the amount of attention people paid to sex previously.  Speaking from a personal standpoint, it may be because my generation’s parents were adolescents in the late seventies and eighties and were not ready to expose us to sex and all things associated with it.  Nonetheless, feelings about sex change with every decade and that is especially evident now.

I got interested in sex education when...

16 & Pregnant became "the" reality show to watch on MTV.  It occurred to me that teen pregnancy was on the rise, so popular that there was an entire television series dedicated to it.  I thought it was strange that a national channel was glamorizing the lifestyle of a teenage mother.  A lot more pregnancies began to occur in my high school after the series began to air.  The rising number of pregnancies made me wonder why teens, both males and females, did not take the necessary precautions to avoid pregnancy.  In the beginning, I was baffled.  Then I realized that I had not attended a sex education class since I was in the sixth grade.  The situation was the same for most of the people in my high school and in my age group.  A lot of people don't like to talk about sex, so they don't.  I think it is time to be realistic about sex and teach it.  Teens are going to have sex whether they are educated about it or not.

The Best Sex Ed

Sadly, this is how many people view sex education.  There is so much more to the story. Hope you enjoy!