Vessel for the Almighty Fetus?

My first real “sex ed” class was in fifth grade. They split up the boys and the girls and separately taught us about our “parts”. We watched a movie about getting your period we saw very simple diagrams of male and female bodies. They gave the girls pads and deodorant. That was it. Then in 7th grade we had a slightly more educational lesson in science class. We saw better pictures of “the parts” and heard a very scientific explanation of were babies come from (and then a very graphic description of the birthing process). We weren’t really told anything about condoms or birth control, basically we were taught that the only appropriate time to have sex is when you are married and ready to have a baby. I do remember being given the opportunity to write down any questions we had about sex onto slips of paper so that our teacher could answer them later, without the embarrassment of actually asking them aloud. However, to my knowledge those questions were never actually answered. In the 11th grade I took an elective anatomy course were we did a whole section on the male and female reproductive systems. We talked about pregnancy and the affect it can have on teens. We then watched a movie called The Miracle of Birth, which honestly still makes me a little sick to my stomach just thinking about it today. We also discussed STDs (I’m not sure when they became STIs, but when I was learning about them it was STDs) and saw a few pictures of what syphilis and gonorrhea look like (close up mind you). Our teacher had us do a project in which everyone in the class had a little cup of water. We all went around the room dipping our fingers into other people’s cups. At the end of the experiment our teacher told us that if dipping your finger into someone else’s cup symbolized sex, then the entire class was either pregnant or had an STD (classy huh?). We were taught that while wearing a condom was better than nothing, they were often ineffective, so the only way to be 100% safe from STD’s is to be abstinent. Basically the entirety of my school sex education pushed the concept that sex is only appropriate for married people. Which is why there seemed to be no need to teach anything about contraception. Most everything I learn about birth control and condoms I got from teen magazines like 17 or CosmoGirl (because like I said in my last post, my parent weren’t particularly helpful in that arena). I think that it is ridiculous to think that because you want kids to wait until they are married to have sex, that there would be no need to teach them how to protect themselves. Like Valenti says, just because you are in a committed relationship (marriage even) doesn’t mean you can’t still get an STI (53)!! I unfortunately know this first hand. I have only had sex with one person in my life (my now husband) and I contracted HPV. I’ll spare you the details but basically, I knew didn’t have any STIs because I’d never been with anyone, and while he had been with several people before me, he had been tested for STI’s and was all clear. I also knew I was safe from pregnancy because I was on the pill, so condoms seemed like an unnecessary hassle and we didn’t use them. Well, unfortunately there is no test for men to detect HPV. I hadn’t even heard of HPV up until they started doing the commercials for Gardesil, so imagine how completely shocked I was to find out that I had it! With everything I had been taught in school about STI’s, I thought that only girls who slept around got them. I’ve only slept with one person, how could I have an STI? Let alone one I hadn’t even heard of. It just goes to show that the information in abstinence only education is not enough (Honestly though, having HPV isn’t really all that bad. All that it really means is that I need to be aware of any changes and get Paps regularly. I’m actually lucky that I know I have it, because more 75% of sexually active adults will contract some strain of HPV (186) and many wont even know they have it!).

Abstinence only education also pushes the idea of traditional gender roles. Purity balls promote that idea that a woman is property to be passed from her father to her future husband (65-69). And one abstinence only curriculum goes as far as to direct teachers to “tell the class that the Bride price is actually an honor to the bride…he is now giving his daughter to the only other man who will take over this protective role “ (107). Because women obviously need protecting. Not only do we need to be protected but also we need someone to make our decisions for us. It is a wide spread notion among legislators and abstinence proponents that women can’t be trusted to make their own decisions, it’s a “Daddy knows best” idea (131). And it’s not just anyone who is making our decisions for us, it’s men. An example of this is a bill that would make it impossible for a woman to receive an abortion without written consent from the fetus’s father (138) (just for the record, I HATE the idea of abortion. I think that if women feel that an abortion is their only option, then society in general has failed us! I hope to someday live in a world were abortions are no longer necessary. That being said, what I hate equally as much is the idea that a women would have to ask “permission” to be able to do what she thinks is right for her and her life). Also, fetal protection laws, which put the rights of a fetus above the rights of a woman (126) show exactly how our paternalistic society views women, as “incubators” (131). I am all about bringing healthy babies into the world, but is women’s sole purpose in life to be a “vessel for the almighty fetus”? I think not!