What do you wish you had been taught about sex in school?
- Thread starter philos
- Start date
OnceFuturePoly
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2011
- Posts
- 216
Just show a couple of the Nina Hartley "how to" videos. There's quite a few of the clips circulating around...
Of course they'd hang you 3 times: Stuff from the Web, Explicit graphics, and Thinking outside the box.
--------
Detailed anatomy, like how to find a hymen, clit, g-spot, how hard to (not) rub...
How to tell my partner what feels good... How to get them to tell me what feels good.
When BC pills can fail, e.g. antibiotics.
--------
q.v. first time thread.
Last edited:
OnceFuturePoly
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2011
- Posts
- 216
Here's one http://xhamster.com/movies/179038/nina_teaches_how_to_eat_pussy.html.
It'a lecture/demonstration format. The whole thing is about 90 minutes and may be also be listed on that xhamster page. Other subjects are available.
It'a lecture/demonstration format. The whole thing is about 90 minutes and may be also be listed on that xhamster page. Other subjects are available.
pplwatching
Full grown man
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2003
- Posts
- 2,353
This is a complicated question. In some ways you are not in an enviable position. Kids have questions and parents would like to have some say in how those questions are answered. I don't know if I have the kind of answer you're looking for, but because I'm an opinionated bastard I'll give you my opinions.
As a parent, both of my kids are in "health" now. One of them is in high school. We've spoken to her teacher. In addition to the mechanics of sex, STDs, pregnancy, and so on she (the teacher) is placing a heavy emphasis on good decision making and evaluating the consequences of decisions like when to have sex. I like that approach. She has her ear to the ground. She puts things in the context of the songs they're listening to and the things they're exposed to every day.
I think (my) kids need to develop a sense of how to live lives that are consistant with their personal value systems. They need to learn how to choose their own boundaries, and enforce them in the face of peer pressure if those decisions aren't popular. In my humble opinion as a sex educator part of your job is to help kids understand that decisions about sex are their choices to make, but they don't have to (and shouldn't) make those decisions alone. They have their own morals, goals, religious beliefs, and of course their parents to use as their guides. Don't let them get hung up on technicalities like "is oral sex still sex". Teach them to ask questions. "What do you think? Is your answer consistant with your personal beliefs and goals? How will this decision affect you?" And, yes, even "is that answer consistent with your chosen faith and religious beliefs".
When it's all said and done they are the ones who will decide when they want to have sex, and what is acceptable to them, no matter what we as parents might prefer. If their choices include abstinence, then they need to be tought how to behave in a way that helps them stick to their decisions. For example, if they don't want to have sex then making out where things can easily escalate to sex is a bad choice. Not because the behaviour is necessarily "bad", but because it has the potential to easily escalate to something inconsistent with their personal choices, goals, and values. Going to parties where their classmates have sex is a choice that's not consistent with their own goals. They need to understand that there are physiological chages to the way their brains make decisions when they are tired, under stress, have had alchohol, or are sexually aroused by heavy petting.
If they want to have sex, they should understand that in spite of what they may see in the media, it has a value, means something, and will affect them. It affects relationships, including prematurely creating a false sense of emotional intimacy. It would be great to discuss the differences between the kinds of emotional bonds formed through sex for each gender. I think it would also be great to discuss how having sex affects self esteem.
I talk to my kids about these kinds of things, but I wish that my teachers had spent more time encouraging me to talk to my parents about sex, and encouraging that dialogue. Factual questions deserve factual answers. Moral and ethical questions also need appropriate answers. I would want you as their sex ed teacher to respond "that's a great question to ask your parents" when a topic comes up. I understand that my kids might be embarassed asking, but if other adults are encouraging that dialogue then perhaps they'll overcome their hesitation. It would be outstanding to have a homework assignment that says "talk to your parents, and write down their responses to the following questions (or topics)." Maybe one a week, so the dialogue is ongoing.
My $.02
Last edited:
NippleMuncher
Masticatus Nipplicanis
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2003
- Posts
- 4,103
IMHO, sex ed isn't about teaching kids how to have sex, it is teaching them how to make informed and healthy decisions about sex.
Biggies on my list would be (in no particular order):
1 - Self respect, mutual respect, and peer pressure: Teach them that it is ok not to do things they don't want to do. Teach them that respecting their own boundaries and those of others is a good thing. Peer pressure has no place when it comes to making sexual decisions. Guilt trips to persuade someone to give in to sexual harassment is not ok.
2 - STDs: These are a very real concern. Teach that condoms, while better than nothing, are not 100% in preventing disease or pregnancy. Teach that birth control does not offer protection against STDs.
3 - Pregnancy prevention: Know what the old wives tales are and what the popular culture myths are and teach reality, not rumor and myth. Things like not being able to get pregnant the first time having sex, or that STDs are not transferable without PIV contact. Teach that the guys are as responsible for prevention as the girls.
You may need to split the lesson plan into boys only and girls only segments. Not sure how you'd accomplish getting rid of half the class for half the time period, but there's already an unwillingness to share or ask questions within a group, let alone the additional pressure of the opposite sex being there to make fun of something that is serious to a particular student.
Make yourself available outside of class time to talk individually with a student if they have questions that are either too sensitive for the general class or that would be inappropriate to be asked in front of the class.
In an ideal world, kids would learn the truth about sex from their parents. Living in the real world as I do, I know that many parents are more concerned about keeping their kids in the dark than giving them the facts and let them decide for themselves what they're going to do. Lack of information DOES NOT stop kids from having sex, it has quite the opposite effect, in fact.
Biggies on my list would be (in no particular order):
1 - Self respect, mutual respect, and peer pressure: Teach them that it is ok not to do things they don't want to do. Teach them that respecting their own boundaries and those of others is a good thing. Peer pressure has no place when it comes to making sexual decisions. Guilt trips to persuade someone to give in to sexual harassment is not ok.
2 - STDs: These are a very real concern. Teach that condoms, while better than nothing, are not 100% in preventing disease or pregnancy. Teach that birth control does not offer protection against STDs.
3 - Pregnancy prevention: Know what the old wives tales are and what the popular culture myths are and teach reality, not rumor and myth. Things like not being able to get pregnant the first time having sex, or that STDs are not transferable without PIV contact. Teach that the guys are as responsible for prevention as the girls.
You may need to split the lesson plan into boys only and girls only segments. Not sure how you'd accomplish getting rid of half the class for half the time period, but there's already an unwillingness to share or ask questions within a group, let alone the additional pressure of the opposite sex being there to make fun of something that is serious to a particular student.
Make yourself available outside of class time to talk individually with a student if they have questions that are either too sensitive for the general class or that would be inappropriate to be asked in front of the class.
In an ideal world, kids would learn the truth about sex from their parents. Living in the real world as I do, I know that many parents are more concerned about keeping their kids in the dark than giving them the facts and let them decide for themselves what they're going to do. Lack of information DOES NOT stop kids from having sex, it has quite the opposite effect, in fact.
OnceFuturePoly
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2011
- Posts
- 216
Something I noticed trawling for videos -- one on how to shave your privates.
(You ask for things you might not think of
)
(You ask for things you might not think of
)
serpentwrap
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2009
- Posts
- 209
If I had to teach about sex, I would teach them about respecting humans. In my experience, teenagers are so raged by hormones that they forget about mutual respect of each other and their partners. Its only much later they learn about respecting individuals even as sexual partners. In addition to hygiene etc., of course...
Biker_Type
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2008
- Posts
- 784
hmmmm...by the time they had 'health class' at my school in 8th grade i'd been sexually active for a year!
CWatson
Not in a band.
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2003
- Posts
- 1,653
A few random thoughts.
1) pplwatching is indeed incredibly wise.
2) When I help my friends and peers (we're nearing 30) with their self-esteem, I always ask them to take a look around at everyone near them, and point something out: everyone they can see is insecure. Obviously, none of those insecurities are being worn on their sleeves, and what that means is that you (my hypothetical friend I'm talking to right now) can assume that yours are just as hidden. We all tend to feel like our flaws must be obvious to anyone who so much as looks at us, but the truth is exactly the opposite.
Therefore, my second suggestion--and this might be a cop-out, but it might also be a very good thing to help establish a baseline--is to get the kids to run the discussion. Open the floor and let them ask and answer each other's questions. This not only helps you establish a baseline sense of where everybody is, but it gets them learning from and about their peers. Sex is intimately linked to insecurity, and it gets clouded by supposition and assumption very easily. Clearing those clouds away--getting people to wear things on their sleeves--lets everyone know where everyone else stands, and also promotes a sex-positive atmosphere. (This assumes that your teens are mature enough to do this. God only knows if that's true.)
3) As someone who lost his virginity less than two years ago, this is definitely something that I suspected beforehand and confirmed after: when you masturbate, you cum harder and more quickly than when you're doing it. (This is because you know yourself better than your partner does. [Note: yes, this is less true for people in marriages or long-term relationships. I am assuming your high-school kids are not involved in those.]) In other words, intercourse does not feel better than masturbation. What's special about intercourse is the partner--not just because of the emotions and etc that stir up, but because, simply put, they still can't please you any better than you can please yourself. So, why put yourself on the market just for the sake of it?--you'll risk pregnancy and STDs, possibly social ostracism, and it won't be as fun as a date with Rosie Palms.
4) In the Bible, the term "to know" also means "to have sex with"; hence the slang about "knowing someone biblically." This is actually an interesting play on words, because when you fuck someone, you certainly do learn things about them--endowment, love hands, blemishes and imperfections, the weird noises they make when they cum--that you wouldn't otherwise. But it's also a double-edged sword. When you have sex with someone, they learn those things about you. Do you really want that person to know those things? Especially if s/he is the type to spread it all across campus?
(I think the hardest thing to do when you're that age is find reasons to wait, and I'm kind of trying to provide them.)
My 2¢, worth what you paid for 'em.
1) pplwatching is indeed incredibly wise.
2) When I help my friends and peers (we're nearing 30) with their self-esteem, I always ask them to take a look around at everyone near them, and point something out: everyone they can see is insecure. Obviously, none of those insecurities are being worn on their sleeves, and what that means is that you (my hypothetical friend I'm talking to right now) can assume that yours are just as hidden. We all tend to feel like our flaws must be obvious to anyone who so much as looks at us, but the truth is exactly the opposite.
Therefore, my second suggestion--and this might be a cop-out, but it might also be a very good thing to help establish a baseline--is to get the kids to run the discussion. Open the floor and let them ask and answer each other's questions. This not only helps you establish a baseline sense of where everybody is, but it gets them learning from and about their peers. Sex is intimately linked to insecurity, and it gets clouded by supposition and assumption very easily. Clearing those clouds away--getting people to wear things on their sleeves--lets everyone know where everyone else stands, and also promotes a sex-positive atmosphere. (This assumes that your teens are mature enough to do this. God only knows if that's true.)
3) As someone who lost his virginity less than two years ago, this is definitely something that I suspected beforehand and confirmed after: when you masturbate, you cum harder and more quickly than when you're doing it. (This is because you know yourself better than your partner does. [Note: yes, this is less true for people in marriages or long-term relationships. I am assuming your high-school kids are not involved in those.]) In other words, intercourse does not feel better than masturbation. What's special about intercourse is the partner--not just because of the emotions and etc that stir up, but because, simply put, they still can't please you any better than you can please yourself. So, why put yourself on the market just for the sake of it?--you'll risk pregnancy and STDs, possibly social ostracism, and it won't be as fun as a date with Rosie Palms.
4) In the Bible, the term "to know" also means "to have sex with"; hence the slang about "knowing someone biblically." This is actually an interesting play on words, because when you fuck someone, you certainly do learn things about them--endowment, love hands, blemishes and imperfections, the weird noises they make when they cum--that you wouldn't otherwise. But it's also a double-edged sword. When you have sex with someone, they learn those things about you. Do you really want that person to know those things? Especially if s/he is the type to spread it all across campus?
(I think the hardest thing to do when you're that age is find reasons to wait, and I'm kind of trying to provide them.)
My 2¢, worth what you paid for 'em.
Last edited:
G
GrrlFriday
Guest
Perhaps if you posted up your general outline, what you're planning to teach over how long, we could help you fill in the gaps better?
philos
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2003
- Posts
- 1,931
I was really just curious what people wished they had been taught. The life lessons we've gotten the hard way that maybe could have been easier. I really think I built the whole thing up way too much in my younger mind. Not that I don't love sex or find it extremely important, but I really remember expecting something more.
fire_breeze
Softly Seductive
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2007
- Posts
- 47,709
1. That no means no, for both girls and boys. In other words, everyone has the right to say no, and that's that. Too many people get pressured into having sex before they are ready, and their 'no' (regardless of gender) is not respected.
2. The best thing that was taught in my (believe it or not) very Catholic high school is to evaluate your decision, know what the consequences are and then take the steps to minimise said consequences. So if a couple wants to indulge in penetrative intercourse, they need to be aware of what can happen and then from there, take the necessary precautions. And yes, we were taught about birth control and their efficiency.
3. That talking about sex and bodies to a health care professional is nothing to be ashamed of and there is no need for euphemism. A HCP cares about your health, not whether or not you like being bitten.
4. There's nothing wrong about sex, and there isn't anything wrong about not having sex.
5. What you see on screen is not a reflection of what happens in the bedroom.
6. That they should find a competent, non-judgmental adult to talk with that they are comfortable with whenever they have any issues and questions. It may be their own parents, relatives, teachers, HCP, etc.
2. The best thing that was taught in my (believe it or not) very Catholic high school is to evaluate your decision, know what the consequences are and then take the steps to minimise said consequences. So if a couple wants to indulge in penetrative intercourse, they need to be aware of what can happen and then from there, take the necessary precautions. And yes, we were taught about birth control and their efficiency.
3. That talking about sex and bodies to a health care professional is nothing to be ashamed of and there is no need for euphemism. A HCP cares about your health, not whether or not you like being bitten.
4. There's nothing wrong about sex, and there isn't anything wrong about not having sex.
5. What you see on screen is not a reflection of what happens in the bedroom.
6. That they should find a competent, non-judgmental adult to talk with that they are comfortable with whenever they have any issues and questions. It may be their own parents, relatives, teachers, HCP, etc.
CWatson
Not in a band.
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2003
- Posts
- 1,653
OMG. Seriously. I know exactly how you feel.
The question is, how do you bust this. I also remember being that age and not really trusting what anyone else had to say. That's how human beings are: we don't believe what we haven't seen with our own eyes. (Or felt with our own cocks, as it were.) Additionally, the whole point of "teenage rebellion" is demolishing your soul and rebuilding it from the ground up: striking out on your own, deciding for yourself, for the first time, what kind of person you want to be and whether the values you were force-fed as a child are values you still agree with. Teenage rebellion is the first stirrings of adult independence, and it needs to be encouraged, or at least permitted, if you want a functional adult to emerge from it. All of this, combined with the mystique that has been built up around sex (not to mention one's own hormones) would create the idea that there must be something awesome in there that one can only experience first-hand... And somehow you would have to start from within that morass of awe and just methodically burst it, bubble by bubble. I can't for the life of me imagine how you would do this.
(With all this in mind, suddenly I'm a bit more sympathetic to the absurd notion put forth by rabid conservatives that talking about sex at all will encourage people to try it. Simply put, it will: you sit down with your peers, you discover they're just as ignorant as you, and you're like, "Well, what could be simpler, why don't we just find out?" What I don't agree with is the rabid-conservative belief that these experiments cannot be safe. They can. Besides, while mistakes are inevitable, mistakes are how we grow and mature. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is also the opposite of wisdom.)
AdjectiveNounVerb
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2012
- Posts
- 221
Also would be great to discuss how NOT having sex affect self-esteem, and whether or not it actually should have that effect. In other words, if somebody'd given me a lesson back in my early-to-mid teens (and gotten it to stick) where I'd been taught that it's ok to graduate high school, or even college, while still being a virgin and that still being a virgin the day after your 18th birthday or even into your twenties doesn't mean that you're an inherently and irredeemably unlovable butt-ugly jerkass dweeb whose only chance to ever have sex will be by spending an arm and a leg on a desperately broke prostitute or by finding someone who's on the rebound from an abusive relationship and being a doormat to her, it would have reduced the amount of therapy and antidepressants I've needed over the past decade.
Everything Nipplemuncher listed is good stuff, don't get me wrong, but I'd learned that on my own early on. Lessons on how to not be miserable because of my virginity and regard it as a stigma worse than leprosy is what I needed to be taught and never was.
pplwatching
Full grown man
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2003
- Posts
- 2,353
I didn't have sex until I was past 25. While she wasn't my first, I had very few lovers before I met future wife. The women I did have sex with were generous lovers in mutually respectful relationships with me. I didn't have any hang ups or self esteem issues as a result of waiting, although I admit sometimes it was a little awkward when I didn't have any experience to bullshit about at parties. I was a well adjusted late bloomer. I had sex when I was ready to have sex, and believe that waiting was right for me. Now I'm a well adjusted kinkster.
I wish we had been told that sex outside of a relationship is ok, if accompanied by open communication with sexual partners. There was so much talk of how intimate and special sex and that you should be with someone you love before you have sex. I didn't buy it, but it meant that I had to keep large parts of my sexual life secret from my friends that did, lest they think I was a 'slut'.
I think it would be beneficial to teach kids that if:
a). You feel comfortable enough with someone to discuss sex and what you're expectations surrounding sex are
b). You trust them
c). You want to have sex with them (i.e you're not being pressured at all)
d). You're going to do it safely
then it's perfectly healthy to have sex with that person, regardless of whether you're in love or in a relationship with them.
I also wish that they had covered masturbation in greater detail and worked at making it an easier topic for females to discuss. It seems that it's still a taboo topic for some females and it really shouldn't be.
I think it would be beneficial to teach kids that if:
a). You feel comfortable enough with someone to discuss sex and what you're expectations surrounding sex are
b). You trust them
c). You want to have sex with them (i.e you're not being pressured at all)
d). You're going to do it safely
then it's perfectly healthy to have sex with that person, regardless of whether you're in love or in a relationship with them.
I also wish that they had covered masturbation in greater detail and worked at making it an easier topic for females to discuss. It seems that it's still a taboo topic for some females and it really shouldn't be.
bronzeage
I am a river to my people
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2005
- Posts
- 49,685
If you don't do anything else, somehow get them to understand that the "I haven't gotten pregnant yet," method is the worst possible form of birth control.
MsQuote
Polite Depraved Dame
- Joined
- May 7, 2012
- Posts
- 1,456
What is it you're supposed to teach? Were you given any guidelines or materials? When we had our sex ed lecture in high school, avoiding pregnancy and STD's was the big message. Of course, that was over 30 years ago.
When my boys were in middle school and high school, we had impromptu discussions (in the car, sitting around the house) about sexual responsibility ... birth control, safe sex, emotional implications, etc.
subwannabe
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2004
- Posts
- 2,872
I can't say that this is what I wanted to be taught in high school but I would like to say that somehow kids need to be educated about masturbation. They need to know there is nothing wrong with it and that it can be effectively used for pleasure without having to take the chances of real sex. I mean even if a person is sexually active then cutting down on the number of real encounters through effective use of masturbation could save a pregnancy or STD, at least to some degree.
silverwhisper
just this guy, you know?
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2005
- Posts
- 11,319
1. safe sex, meaning both STD avoidance and pregnancy avoidance. forever is a term most kids can't understand b/c to them forever means longer than they wanna deal with. i was that age, and that's exactly what it meant to me at the time.
2. the choice to have or not to have sex is ultimately their own.
3. good decision-making is aided greatly by avoiding situations in which only bad results can come.
ed
2. the choice to have or not to have sex is ultimately their own.
3. good decision-making is aided greatly by avoiding situations in which only bad results can come.
ed
Desiremakesmeweak
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2012
- Posts
- 2,060
"I really remember expecting something more."
Oh boy.
Did you not ever find it...?
Reminds me that as an economist and mathematician, the world is run by accountants - which is the equivalent of going to a photographer when you really should take your car to a mechanic or engineer!
Sex education is a bridge too far for educators. Yes yes there is all the medical and pseudo-scientific stuff that people apparently want to impart to teenagers for all kinds of meritorious reasons.
The 'something more' is accutely important. There IS a something more. The promise of education that anyone and/or everyone 'could' attain this, is in this case a lie.
Oh boy.
Did you not ever find it...?
Reminds me that as an economist and mathematician, the world is run by accountants - which is the equivalent of going to a photographer when you really should take your car to a mechanic or engineer!
Sex education is a bridge too far for educators. Yes yes there is all the medical and pseudo-scientific stuff that people apparently want to impart to teenagers for all kinds of meritorious reasons.
The 'something more' is accutely important. There IS a something more. The promise of education that anyone and/or everyone 'could' attain this, is in this case a lie.
MatthewVett
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2009
- Posts
- 3,178
1) Contraception and various methods of birth control. Try to debunk as many rumors as you can.
2) If you can get away with it, what is rape. I've dealt with way too many high school kids who think rape is a joke, and I've read way too many internet comments from people who don't think certain kinds of rape "count." Drill it into their fucking heads.
2) If you can get away with it, what is rape. I've dealt with way too many high school kids who think rape is a joke, and I've read way too many internet comments from people who don't think certain kinds of rape "count." Drill it into their fucking heads.
