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sexeducationsurveys-blog · 7 years

Text

Nevada, United States

Interviewee Demographics

Gender: Female

Age: Over 21 and less than 90; alternatively, old enough to know better

Marital Status: Married on paper; WINO (Wife In Name Only)

Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian

General Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

1. What area did you grow up in and did that have an impact on your sexual education?

I was born in Nebraska, but moved to Las Vegas, Nevada for second grade, and have lived here since.

I don’t believe my Midwestern birth had anything to do with my level of sexual education or my beliefs (my parents were not from the area, I left before any of the social mores could be ingrained), but I strongly believe that enduring decades of the Clark County School District’s abysmal excuse for sex ed (starting during the AIDS onslaught, no less!) profoundly shaped my views.

Some people might claim that growing up in Sin City affected my values, but, if anything, I am more conservative/prudish than some people from rural/not-so-sexually-advertised areas. Since I was always exposed to Crazy Girls ads and such from a young age, I grew to ignore them.

2. What were your family’s beliefs regarding sex?

Polar opposites: sex basically didn’t exist and was never talked about . . . except for catcalls and lewd remarks when some hot broad appeared on the TV, or vague whispered censure or loud guffawing when somebody in the news got pregnant.

Sex was NEVER mentioned, nor was puberty or any form of human development; in fact, I had absolutely no idea what menstruation was until my menarche happened at the age of 7.

I had to investigate the phenomenon on my own (and with no Internet), since the extent of my mother’s involvement was to pull me into her bedroom, close and lock the bedroom door dramatically, back me into the door, put her hands on my shoulders, then demand, “Has anybody been messing with you?!”

Cue clueless-yet-terrified-and-stammering-response.

My mother was in utter denial of the idea that I could be menstruating and continued with that approach for at least five years; after all, only teenagers went through that, and no one ever talked about it.

We were never told about male and female anatomy, either; I guess we were just supposed to figure that out from all of the (sometimes) veiled comments that (mostly) the males in the house made.

Here’s something that will date me: I clearly remember watching The Blue Lagoon on HBO with my father in the room (and he was making crude remarks about Brooke Shields) when the pond/swimming scene came on. I, being unable to see the screen much in the dark room, asked my father what was going on. He refused to answer, got offended and just shut up. I had to figure it out for myself.

You should conclude that parts of the rest of that movie didn’t go over too well, either, and that I didn’t exactly try to watch ANY movies with my father after that.

I learned from several different sources (often from exchanges during arguments or from filed paperwork) that my mother had had a hysterectomy after I was born, ostensibly so she wouldn’t have any more children. My father almost constantly referred to my mother as “being on the rag” when she was being disagreeable or would not do what he wanted, and he would tell her during almost every argument (when he wasn’t dumping a pot of hot spaghetti water on her head) that she should “shove your rag in your mouth” to gross her out and shut her up.

There was a very definite gender divide, and the level of misogyny was incalculable.

While not strictly related to sex, the following anecdote is related to gender and sexual expectations. I had a sister who was 11 years older than I was; she had just started college when I was 7. My parents did not want her to go to school, even though she had excellent grades and seemed reasonably intelligent, so they dissuaded her in every way they could think of (e.g., they didn’t pay for her to go, she had to have at least one job to pay her own way, they refused to fill out scholarship or other aid forms, they made her pay significant rent, she never had a car and had to pay to take a bus three hours each way to school, they berated her whenever possible, etc. ) The only reason they eventually “permitted” her to go was because a relative told them that my sister would have a much better chance of catching a husband if she had a year or two of college under her belt, and given her looks, she really needed the help.

Hyeah.

Of course, she was told to avoid all young men for any reason, though, because she’d get a reputation. As what, I was never told.

The boys, on the other hand, were encouraged to do anything or anyone they wanted (as long as it was a female), including the 30-ish bar singer who apparently gave my teenage brother (why the hell was he in a bar???) some form of VD.

Males (married, somewhat less so) could “play around” (or at least leer) at will, but girls (especially wives) could not; bad things (like pregnancy or death) happened to bad girls, and listening to raunchy songs or reading dirty books was bad.

For girls. Your father having “nudy” magazines is just fine, because, you know, we never talk about those, and, no, that wasn’t a violent screaming match you heard when your mother found your brother’s porn stash and he objected.

I clearly remember an incident with my mother yelling and then muttering at me while Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got to Do With It? was on the radio. She was incensed at me for listening to that trash, as it advocated women having sex without love/women having casual sexual relationships/a woman refusing a man’s honorable advances. I pointed out to her that the lyrics actually were about a woman in denial that she was deeply in love, trying to convince herself that it was just a physical thing, when it clearly meant a great deal more. Mom didn’t care.

In general, no information about sex, girls do not have sex before marriage but must somehow lure husbands without getting a reputation and then they dutifully have sex as their procreational duty while the husbands’ eyes and other parts wander, and mothers do not talk to their daughters or interfere with their sons.

3. What are your current family’s beliefs on sex?

Wow, there’s no single or suitable answer for that, particularly as the question is phrased. Do you mean, a) the family that consisted of my husband, me, and our children, at the present time, or, b) what values did my husband and I have or do we have now, or c) what did we, as parents, try to do to educate our children about, or d) did my birth family’s beliefs change? I think you actually ask parts of those questions later, so I’ll answer them there.

4. How would you describe your personal stance on sex or sex education?

What are you trying to ask?

I do not personally desire or need to have sex. I don’t see people as sexually attractive to me personally, although I can appreciate their allure objectively, for others. My greatest desire is for sleep, and that’s not sexual in nature; if you want something I seem to have an almost-sexual desire for, I’d say a yarn hoard or a mantled black leather Inverness coat (don’t ask for further details, trust me).

I believe that sex should not normally be a casual act; there should be a positive relationship first, and that no one should ever feel forced into it. There should be open communication and consent by all involved. All parties should be of the legal age of consent, all should use appropriate methods of birth control and disease prevention, no one should be permanently physically damaged, and no animals should be involved, unless they are stuffed versions or Furries, I guess – other than those requirements, I’m pretty laissez faire: what consenting adults or similar do in private quarters without harming anyone is fine by me.

5. Are you a parent or guardian? If so, how many children do you have?

Yes, I have four or five children, depending on if you count the husband.

To somewhat answer a possible question from above: my husband really had no involvement with the sexual education of our children, unless you count them laughing or screaming when they saw him naked. Everything was left to me, as, beyond his family’s and his personal discomfort with sexual topics, my husband saw it as not his business to educate four daughters about girl things.

Anecdote about husband’s sexual education: He did not know what the word “virgin” meant until he was 15. And his parents were Catholic. Think about that.

Second anecdote about husband’s sexual education: He “attended” me (that’s a VERY generous term) during the birth of my fourth daughter. An elder girl (also present) and I clearly remember him saying, “There’s something coming out . . . but it’s not a baby!” To this day, the sibling remarks that a father of four of his age should have at least known the different orifices by then.

6. What kind of area do you currently live in and how has it affected access to your or your children’s sexual education? Are there any specific limitations preventing you from getting the sex education you or your children need?

I live in Las Vegas, Nevada, which means that the Clark County School District’s personnel (all of whom have different opinions/excuses) are supposedly in charge of formal sex ed.

These people have done their damnedest to block all attempts at education, in all areas, but especially anything regarding sex. See some of the most notable anecdotes below.

7. Do you believe anything in media shaped your children’s perspectives about sex, gender roles, or body image?

I can’t point to anything specific that had an overwhelming affect in itself, but the widespread use of internet and social media sites in the past decade has really changed what is available, both information and disinformation.

Regarding the CCSD: there was a national news story about a local biddy who didn’t want students to learn anything about sex in their sex ed course, because they should either go to their parents or learn about it online. Great logical response, there.

8. Do you believe your children are in any way influenced or affected by politics concerning, sex, gender, or body image? If so, what concerns might you have?

I feel that it is very important for all people, but especially females, to be aware of the political and practical ramifications of what is going on, locally, nationally, and globally.

I’ve always tried to have my children see more than one viewpoint on major issues, usually by discussing current events with them and/or making them read online and print stories from sources with different agendas/biases. They could then form their own opinions, which don’t necessarily have to (publicly or privately) agree with mine.

The conflicting images of beauty, morality, gender roles, stereotypes, and many other issues are being brought up as the United States struggles through the Trump Period. I could write a tome on issues from the last year, but those wouldn’t all be associated with sex ed.

9. How old do you believe a person should be when they begin their sex education?

That depends on what you define as sex education (maybe you should have asked that or defined what you mean by “sexual education” or “comprehensive sexual education,” so you and the respondents could frame/classify the answers better).

Babies in utero, particularly boys, experience sex education without any intervention at all.

If you want to ask about what point after birth people should start sex education, consider that everyone gets some sex education from supposedly unrelated topics and from all of the sources around them, including media, spoken words, family attitudes (many times, what is NOT said is more powerful than wat IS said), religion, clothing, housing, everything around them.

I believe that relatives should begin the basics when or even before a child is capable of understanding the terms/concepts (and these may not involve written words at all). You don’t need to go into excessive detail, but even toddlers can see that diapers or PullUps (indeed, probably everything around them!) are gender-segregated (why?) or that there are parts of their bodies that are acceptably viewed in public or can be touched by other people, and others that are not (e.g., “Do NOT strip in the McDonald’s PlayPlace tube maze!!!”) The idea of self-respect and consent can be absorbed without mentioning sexual intercourse, religion, morality, or disease. Proper anatomical terms should be used from the beginning; even though family members may use nicknames in private, they should know the real terms, and not be made to think that they are intrinsically dirty.

I think that the biological and at least legal aspects of sex (since some people get up-in-arms about anyone other than parents teaching morality) need to be taught in schools/semi-neutral ground, particularly since many parents have no idea what they’re talking (or not!) about.

The actual SEX education can also be absorbed from everyday lessons, and this is where the family’s values come in, for better or worse.

Sex is a biological process that should be explained like any other; why would you factually-but-simply explain to a toddler with a skinned knee what blood is and why a cut bleeds, but not mention to a tween girl why (and from where else) she might bleed, or make that natural process seem mysterious and shameful? Should sex be something anyone should have whenever they want, or should the topic of sex and even the entire body and face of females be covered, lest they tempt men? Well, if you’re going to advocate the latter, then at least inform BOTH genders about the biological facts, THEN add on your values, and tell children WHY you believe that.

As for terminology: I wouldn’t try to explain to a toddler about estrogen and the menstrual cycle or why human chorionic gonadotrophin is important, but I would use age-appropriate language to explain what is happening to their elder sisters or mother and why most of the sixth-grade boys are shorter than girls and tend to carry their books in front of them.

Many of the modern physical/psychological problems of adolescence could be cleared up with a little open, honest communication, and that habit should have started at birth.

10. Have you, a family member, or a friend broached sexual education to a member of the younger generation? If so, what methods did you use and what was the person’s reaction?

As mentioned, my husband wanted nothing to do with the topic, which was probably for the best, as his giving any explanations probably would have scarred my daughters more.

I tried different approaches, with varying success, for my four daughters. I don’t think anything really worked, and they’re all going to end up learning (if at all) on their own.

Since I endured menarche at 7 and puberty in a house which shunned information, with no forewarning and no assistance, I was determined that would not happen to my children. All of them knew the basics of what was going to happen to them before they were 7.

I used books, videos, personal stories, and even trips through the grocery store. Daily life is an opportunity to learn, and learning should not occur in only one location.

The elder two were within two years of each other, so I basically went through the semi-formal information/lessons once or more with them. They were generally disinterested and probably don’t remember much, but it was apparently significantly more informative than anything the CCSD provided.

For the younger girls, who were within three years of each other but years separated from the elders, I was more concerned with the problems of the elder girls and was more lazy about the subject; it was easier to get books and internet sources for them, and they grew up hearing the lessons the elder ones endured, so their knowledge was more from osmosis and self-taught than lectured.

Depending on the topic and the mood, the girls could be deathly bored or start screaming for brain bleach. It depends on how you present the subject. Humor helps.

11. If you, or someone else, has provided a sex education to your children, how do you believe it has affected them?

See brain bleach note above.

I think the factual presentation of information, integrated throughout daily life and through ad hoc and specific lessons, has made my daughters generally blasé about sex, which could be good or bad. They still have adolescent worries (which is bad, considering two of them are now old enough to see Thunder from Down Under), but the mystery (the bad/addictive kind) is not so alluring.

Then again, I had my eldest read some “romance” novels when she was 14, to counteract a popular teen book series of the time, so she now has some very weird ideas about male vampires. And other things. I think I’m more worried than she is.

12. Do you believe that comprehensive sex education should be taught in schools? If so, who or what kind of person do you believe would be most qualified?

“Comprehensive” means very different things to different people.

The biological and legal aspects, consent, physical and emotional protection, yes, those are the absolute minimum that should be taught, as any other biological or civics subjects needed to be a functioning adult should be.

Different viewpoints, different attitudes, LGBT+ issues, absolutely.

The problem is, HOW comprehensive do you mean, and when?

What I’ve just mentioned is far beyond what the vocal people in this area would accept, particularly for elementary school children.

A school nurse, a health teacher, or someone with factual knowledge (not the long-term sub who’s supposedly teaching English but says “aks” all the time) would best be qualified, but the CCSD requires “qualification” now to teach middle school sex ed, and the local teacher has no clue what he’s doing and keeps being absent for the lectures on sex, so …

13. If your child attends a public, private, or charter school that provides a sexual education, what has your and their experience been like with the institution(s) involved?

I could genuinely write a book on this topic.

In general, the CCSD does not want students to learn, they want them to proceed through 13 years of cattle-car daycare, and they sure as Hell don’t want them to learn anything about sex. Even mentioning the topic obliquely results in pregnant (ha!) pauses, political stammering, stonewalling, and denial.

Some of the more notable anecdotes:

My CCSD sex ed experiences began in the middle school PE orientation, when the gym teacher stage-whispered in front of the whole gym (with the boys in the next bleacher section) about what to do when we were “being M” (dramatic pause, eyes skittering about) and how to get out of the required showers in that case. Of course, she couldn’t explain what she meant, because the boys might hear. ???

Tenth grade health required ONE DAY (one class period, less than one hour) to be on sex ed. It was “taught” by an assistant football coach/driver ed coach with no degree or even formal training on the subject; he also didn’t speak English well. He was clearly uncomfortable and couldn’t even pronounce medical terms; he resorted to (incorrectly) using slang, and ended up telling us to read the photocopied information for ourselves. I missed one question on the test, even though I had to wade through factual errors and slang on the test to guess what the answers were supposed to be, because I didn’t know the street number of the address of the Health District VD Testing Office on Shadow Lane. Yup, that’s what was emphasized. And we STILL weren’t told what sex was; we were in tenth grade, didn’t we know already??

In my senior year, all of the seniors (because, of course, younger students weren’t having sex!) were required to endure a day-long seminar on HIV/AIDS/VD. However, anyone who was 18 or over, or anyone whose parent objected, could get the day off. As I was the first person in the State of Nevada to be emancipated from my parents, I signed myself out of the class, and purposely walked by the window-walled classroom and waved at the miserable occupants.

First daughter: Near the end of 5th Grade, for weeks, she was morose, depressed, closed down. I finally pulled her aside and asked what the problem was. At length, she told me about how she heard (only parts of the lecture, as it was almost whispered by the school nurse, and no one could hear anything) that she would suddenly start bleeding when she got to 6th Grade, and she would have to wear a badge on her pants to tell everyone. No one explained why she would be bleeding, or why she’d have to tell everyone, or what she would have to do; she was terrified and confused. When I explained that she had probably heard “pad” instead of “badge”, and I reminded her about the menstrual cycle, she looked up, shocked, and asked, “Why couldn’t they just have used the words you’ve been telling me for years? Why make such a big deal out of it, keep it a secret?”

She was supposed to have comprehensive sex ed in 8th Grade Health, mandated to be taught by a state-certified teacher. The teacher was notably absent four times that year – all on the scheduled days the sex ed curriculum was supposed to have been taught (and it was only one day long!) He always left the substitute teacher with dittoes on other topics, with replicative fade and factual and spelling errors; the sex talk was never given.

I was the only parent in a high school of 2500 students to ask to see the sex ed materials before the material was given to my child. I was impressed that the nurse had a breast self-exam fake chest, but dismayed that it was kept away from boys and not used in the class (hey, if the girls are squeamish about examining themselves, the boys aren’t; teach them! And, yes, men do get breast cancer). The textbook never mentioned sex or how sperm met egg, yet the photocopied packets for class had pictures of opened-to-camera diseased crotches that so grossed out students that I guess the abstinence-only approach was somewhat successful – for a few minutes. They sickened and scarred my daughter.

On the first day of one health class, my daughter was told that, since the students were in high school, they all knew what sex was, so the teacher wouldn’t have to go over that.

Funny thing was, the girls started whispering and chatting when the topic of the age of consent came up – they had no idea there was a minimum legal age, what consent was, or even that they could say no.

Second daughter: Online health course also never mentioned sex, but at least didn’t have diseased pictures; however, it focused on shaming those who had sex, and the main topic/project was about the costs of having a baby/setting up a nursery (without mentioning how the baby was made), probably as a deterrent. There was also no discussion of breastfeeding, and the project made some extremely outdated and dangerous assumptions.

Third daughter: In her 5th Grade, I was the only parent who asked to see the corporation-sponsored videos being shown; I was questioned about why I would possibly want to see the boys’ or combined-gender versions of the films, as my daughter would never see them.

The volunteers who photocopied the gender-limited, color-coded (pink = girl, blue = boy) information packets switched the information, so girls took home advice that they should wash their scrotum every day. I still want to know what the boys got. Principal unhappy.

She wanted to take the high school health class early, but, after over six months of delay and excuses and numerous rounds of phone tag, I was given the (not written anywhere) rule that students can’t take the class early, and that, despite her previous high school credits and interactions with high school and college students, the class was not suitable for someone her age. After all, she might get into a chat with an older teenager, and discuss some adult themes. How dare she!

Fourth daughter: 5th Grade highlight was a video/animation about how HIV was rolling onto a beach from the ocean, and the lifeguards were T-cells. The video never mentioned how a person gets HIV, how to prevent it, nothing that stuck, at least – everyone was just staring at the cartoons. There was also a video with something about some part of the body called an ovary, that it was the size of some nut, and it did something, but the girls weren’t taught what or why. Sex and reproduction were never mentioned. However, they did get the corporate pack of pads/supplies from Always, and that had a pamphlet.

She was thrilled to learn that 6th Grade biology had a module on sexual vs. asexual reproduction, but was again disappointed that the unit never mentioned what sex was or what the sex cells were or what that had to do with reproduction.

The stonewalling continued with this child, with the principal of Nevada Learning Academy/Virtual High School claiming that it was inappropriate for my daughter to take Health early, for various excuses that lasted for months, and finally culminated in the excuse that the class talked about human trafficking, which was inappropriate for a 10-year-old girl. Funny, the local media ran a story THAT week about an 11-year-old girl being forced to prostitute herself on the streets – why would you NOT want a 10-year-old to know about human trafficking, and how to avoid it??? I also talked about the lessons I’d given her on female genital mutilation, circumcision, birth control, and abortion, but that was irrelevant, as was the fact that I had signed the permission form – the principal was personally uncomfortable with those topics and the political ramifications of letting my daughter into the class, so my daughter couldn’t hear about them.

Meanwhile, she has two college-aged sisters taking sex-related courses, a 14-year old sister exploring her sexuality/orientation, and a mother who lets her read anything she can comprehend, which, since her reading level is Level 13/College and Career, is pretty much anything she wants. We’re considering having her bring in the PBH 429 textbook (Public Health 429, a senior-level course on Education for Human Sexuality) to her reading class, just for fun.

14. If there was anything you would like to add or remove to your children’s sex education, what would it, or they, be?

I would have wanted to add a great deal more information, but life got in the way.

I will never feel that I did an adequate job, but I hope that my daughters continue to learn and be open to learning, rather than ignoring the world and living in their own little bubbles, however permeable they are.

15. BONUS QUESTION: Is there anything else you would like to add or address about sex education or on this interview?

You really need to learn how to better construct a survey or a list of interview questions. It would be helpful to have at least demographic questions and topic/project information at the beginning, along with a very neutral explanation of what the project is about and what the information will be used for (keep in mind that how you phrase that could heavily skew respondents’ answers). The type and composition of your questions results in confusion, repetition, omission, and frustration. I was reminded of several things I would have liked to mention that were extremely on-topic (to what I THOUGHT, before I got the questions, the topic was supposed to be), but I was never asked about them, and I forgot about them as I went on. The topics of the questions do not proceed logically. There was a major emphasis on being a parent, making most of the questions irrelevant to those without children. If this was even a semi-formal project, with more than a few respondents or a need to tabulate or classify results, these questions would be unusable, unless all of your respondents added in responses about the same issues without communicating with each other. You could have chosen to include ranged-answer or other types of questions to help make the answers more usable (e.g., “At what age did you have your first formal sex ed course/session in a school (if any)?) Overall, EVERY question needs to be reworked for this to be usable as anything other than very initial social research.

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