The boys fling open the door to the classroom,
back from track early.
My gym teacher takes a piece of chalk
and deftly transforms the diagram
of the female reproductive system
into the face of a puppy:
Fallopian tubes for ears,
ovaries for drooping eyes.
She winks at us, frozen in our desks,
We don’t want to frighten them.
*a poem from Rikki Rogers, whose work and more – she is a poet, writer, marketer, and mom who lives in Virginia – you can access http://www.rikkiwrites.com
In my own life, reproductive health was always an afterthought; our ‘health’ teacher in high school was more interested in telling us of the dangers of drinking (she was a teetotaler) than explaining what was central to our lives as living breathing teenagers bursting with hormones, as young men and women: the capacities, needs, pitfalls and pleasures of our own bodies. We needed and need to know this shit; desire, sexuality, love, abuse, masturbation, rape, making love or fucking – are among the most impactful states, acts, fantasies – you name it – of human being-ness that exist. Depending on parents to teach young children up to whatever age is bullshit because too many just won’t due to traumas or issues of their own, simple embarrassment or denial. What is public education for, if not to teach us the basics? Like abortion and contraceptive access, sex ed. should be universal from an early age. We sang that absurd rhyme, ‘Ronnie and Susie sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g! First Comes love, then comes marriage…’ in – first grade? Second? Kindergarten? Kids know. Or, rather, kids know something. Let’s inform them, because ignorance in this instance is not bliss.
And of course the idea that we need to make sure that boys aren’t ‘scared’ of the female reproductive system is just another form of misogyny, letting men and boys off the hook, denying them information the majority of ’em might need like how to best give your female partner or partners an orgasm! Hey, even simply encouraging boys and men to prioritize their female partners’ pleasure would be a good thing. Sigh.