Okay, this kind of bullshit just pisses me the fuck off.

I am in no way an advocate of stupid sex, and that seems to be the only thing that abstinence-only sex education seems to teach. I can't recall even being told that I had clitoris in high school. No one told me that it takes a girl longer to get off than a guy and that you can't just shove it in there and expect immediate pleasure on the female's part. No one said, 'Hey it's okay if you masturbate,' instead I remember being told that if I didn't want to have sex I should play games, study, read, blah blah frickety BLAH. Instead of telling teenagers to wait for marriage, why aren't our schools telling them how to not be stupid?

When I was working at Party City, we had SO MANY high school girls getting pregnant. The most recent one, I'll call her Demi, got pregnant because she thought the PULLING OUT method was an effective means of birth control. She said, "I didn't know the guy did it in there. He didn't tell me until like a week later." I've had other GIRLS tell me that they didn't know where--or even if--they could get condoms. "What should I tell my parents, Meg?" "Should I put my boyfriend's name on the birth certificate?" "How was I supposed to know I was going to get pregnant?" These are all questions I was asked by my YOUNGER co-workers and it breaks my heart. I shouldn't have to to be taken aside by one of employees who is still in high school to council her on which birth control test she should buy.

And even if the government and majority of voters insist on being so backwards on this issues, it breaks my heart that so many parents just take the attitude that if it's taught in school, then their kids have been told everything they need to know. I actually had to FORCE a sex talk out of my mother because I had no idea what or even if she was comfortable with me coming to her if I had a question about intimate acts. She had just assumed the school had given me the information I needed, when my education was actually sorely lacking. What I do know now about sex--that I have rights, that no one is looking out for me and that I have to take care of myself, and even more importantly, that sex is not something to be ashamed about--were things I discovered from books and over the internet. And I'm just so lucky that I am naturally cautious and paranoid. This is perhaps the only time that I have ever been grateful for possessing those two characteristics. Without them, I would have jumped in bed with the first guy to tell me he loved me (well, okay, jumped in the backseat) and said yes to unprotected sex several times.

But you know what? I'm damn tired of having to play surrogate big sister to all of the younger females in my life. As much as I love all of them, it breaks my heart that they can't have these conversations with their mothers, aunts, sisters, fathers, and the teachers that have been entrusted with their sexual education. As a girl's supervisor at her place of employment, I should not be her first stop for help. I'm not against helping the females in my life, regardless of how poorly acquainted we may be, but I wish that they had been gifted with the power to make informed decisions in the first place. I wish they weren't learning about birth control and safe sexual practices before they were pregnant--and in some cases, handled too roughly for comfort. And I am truly saddened that these same practices are going to continue.

I look forward to the day that I no longer have to be pulled into my office by a scared child who is about to become a mother.