Taylor the Teacher

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This post might disgust some male readers. I’m going to discuss the cervix, the ovaries, the vagina, and cottage cheese. Get over it. Or tune in tomorrow, but I am sick of the third-world ignorance that surrounds abstinence only sex education. You are warned.

First some background on me. I am a woman. I am not a virgin. I am almost 37, but I have never had a child. I have been remarkably lucky in the gynecological aspects of being a woman. Many women I know, by the time they are my age, have had endometriosis, babies, PID, inverted uteri, cervical cancer, or other female medical horrors. I have my yearly pap, and then I’m outta there. I am blessed. In the world of womanhood, in the company of other women my age, I am a neophyte. I’ve never had to deal with cervical mucus, episiotomies, epidurals, basal temperatures, biopsies, clomid, or any of that. So, I’m accustomed to being silent in conversation with women about womanly things.

But I do have some formal education. More importantly, I have a mother who was very frank and honest with me about biology and facts. I asked her anything. She answered. I wasn’t ashamed. I didn’t appreciate at the time how rare and valuable this was. Now that I’m a teacher, I do. I honestly didn’t know there were people (whole school programs!) that still tried to skirt vaginal subjects. How blessed I’ve been.

M. is a student I have taught for three of her four years of high school. She’s a senior this year. She had a baby last year. A little girl. M. usually shows up early to my first period class, and I love that. She and I are as close to being friends as the professional relationship allows. We’ve progressed beyond being “teacher/student” to something more akin to “big sister/little sister.” I’m aware of professional distance and all that. Don’t crucify me. But what would you do?

M. showed up early in my room on this particular day, like most days. We were alone at first, and somehow the discussion turned to female stuff. It became clear to me through the course of the conversation that this girl didn’t know the difference in the function and importance between her ovaries and her Fallopian tubes. She also didn’t know the exact nature of a surgical procedure her mother had signed for while she was on the table last year having her baby. She also didn’t know what a yeast infection was.

My god. What was I supposed to do? I am, after all, an educator. The girl told me she had her ovaries removed, but could still have babies, and she asked me what a yeast infection was. She also told me she was vaccinated for cancer. Good lord. Is this America?

The vaccination in question, as I understand it, is NOT a cancer vaccination, but a vaccination for HPV, human papilloma virus, which can cause cervical cancer, and which young girls should get, definitely. But let’s be clear about exactly what the nature of this particular vaccination is for, right? Let’s be accurate in naming it, and in describing exactly what it can and cannot do.

While we’re at it, let’s go ahead and explain the ovaries, uterus, vagina, and Fallopian tubes, just for kicks. She did not, of course, have her ovaries removed, but ONE Fallopian tube, due to something or other that caused her doctor to think (as best I can determine with no medical training asking questions of a teenager who knew even less than I did) that she would be at risk in the future of a tubal pregnancy. As far as I can see, her mother signed a consent, on the advice of her doctor, to remove a tube to avoid this. Mom did the right thing. But M. doesn’t know what, exactly, mom did, what was removed, or what the differences might be between losing ONE tube and losing her ovaries.

Again.

Dear God. Seriously. Please help us. We’ve been unforgivably shortsighted.

Um, did I also mention that this girl is now raising a little girl?

So, although the conversation started around 8:05, and started out relatively private, by 8:20 or so, it had progressed to her question “What is a yeast infection anyway?” while one particular boy had made his way into the room. “Sorry, B,” I said, “we’re talking about girl stuff. You can stay or leave as you wish.” B. elected to leave. But another boy, C. had to get me to sign something. I made a similar apology to C., and he said, “I don’t care. I have three sisters.”

So, here I am, at 8:25 in the morning, explaining the vaginal balance between bacteria and yeast the best way I know how (thinking that I’d have boned up if I had known I was going to be teaching this.) A couple of other girls are now listening from the sidelines, and a couple of the boys have heard the conversation and either ducked out or accepted that it’s just a biological discussion and ignored it. And I’m thinking, “This is how teachers get fired. I’m not supposed to say “vagina” unless I’ve been specially trained.”

But really, screw that.

Ownership of a vagina is a specific, medical, NON-shameful thing. A thing that is greatly enhanced by actual FACTS. I hate that we had to wait until this girl was 17 years old and already had a baby to have this discussion, but the child is asking me. I will not refuse to provide the best facts I know on the subject. I know, at the very least, the difference between my ovaries and my Fallopian tubes. I could be wrong on the cancer vaccine thing, but I was on the spot. I told her to ask her doctor or look it up. But refusing to talk about vaginas is outrageously ignorant, and I refuse.

I refuse.

Vagina.

Vagina.

Vagina.

It’s completely sick, perverted, puritanical, and even dare I say — (this really might be the first time I’ve dared use the word) PATRIARCHAL — to treat medical, factual, biological knowledge as something too disgusting to discuss. I wasn’t being crude; I wasn’t being sexual. I was being careful not to be any more graphic than necessary. But I will not compromise desperately needed information.

So B. left, and wasn’t traumatized, and C. didn’t leave and wasn’t traumatized. I was, frankly, more concerned about the boys. The girls clearly needed this information (several who didn’t have the nerve to ask the way M. did were listening intently.) But isn’t that part of learning to be a male in the world? Learning to cope with the real fact that sometimes women need to have conversations you may not be a part of? Either way, I know I wasn’t doing anything wrong, and nobody has mentioned it again. I only bring it up because I cannot freaking believe that M. didn’t know this already.

And I wonder: why is the vagina so scary that we can’t give accurate information to young people who OWN a vagina in an institution of learning?

UPDATE: Check out the following video from BlueBlogsTV.

Angry Black Bitch has plenty to say on abstinence only sex education:

Blunt told the women of Missouri that knowing shit is dangerous for us.

Blink.

He told young women that they are better served left in a state of ignorance…that facts are the enemy…and that they can’t be trusted with ideas and or to make the right choices.

HB 1055 declares war on knowledge. It supports abstinence only education despite the success of comprehensive sex education programs which include abstinence.

HB 1055 bans trained sex educators from Missouri classrooms…because Lawd knows we don’t want those pesky degree having intellectuals damaging those fragile young virginal minds with facts.

Jon Swift has this to say on abstinence only programs (whole article is good):

If these programs have in fact been a failure, I don’t think it is because kids were being given too much inaccurate information. I think the real problem was that they were given any information at all. We need more ignorance about sex, not less. The word “abstinence” itself is probably too explicit. Once you tell kids to abstain from sex until marriage, you have already told them too much. When kids start experimenting with abstaining, it should be no surprise that things can get out of hand and that they will move on to actually having sex.

Kids who are told to abstain from something are naturally going to start wondering what they are abstaining from. Instead of then telling them what sex is in explicit detail, and then telling them not to do it, it might be better if teachers described sex using vague, confusing metaphors the way adults used to back when teens were not having sex. For example, instead of outlining the mechanics of sex, a teacher could say, “Are you familiar with the workings of the internal combustion engine?” After an hour of talking about pistons and carburetors and spark plugs and power strokes, the class would be over. Typical questions such as “Where do babies come from?” could easily be deflected by talking about storks illustrated by cartoons. Cute stories like this have worked for centuries.