Safe Sex

I read a headline about California offering free condoms to kids as young as 12. As you might expect, there was plenty of parents making comments like: "Why are you encouraging sex rather than abstinence?!" and: "This is how we end up with rampant teen pregnancy!"

Then there were parents who are like: "No matter what we do, teens who want to have sex are going to have sex. I'd rather that mine be safe and use condoms!" And: "I have no problems passing out condoms so long as you teach them all the possible consequences of having sex."

I got to thinking - once again - how cool it would be to have a class in school, or perhaps not IN school, but out of school in a building all it's own, that teaches kids safe sex... wait for it...

Hands on!

Yep, I mean that literally. Teach them the skills necessary to be good lovers WITHOUT intercourse. Teach them oral skills. Teach them tactile skills such as basic massage. Have them practice on each other - gender separate at first, but then co-ed for a bit. After that, they can decide which sex they prefer.

Of course there would be some caveats. First of all, there would have to be a generally agreed upon age for the students. I'm going to go with 16 because it's the age of consent, but I think that younger teens could participate if they wanted to WITH parental consent. Second of all, ALL the students would need to be tested for STDs before entering the class. After all, this class is meant to teach SAFE sex, and the best way to do that is to emphasize the reality of STD's and also emphasize using protection to avoid pregnancy.

ALSO keep in mind that I already said that there would be NO intercourse in the class. The purpose of the class is to teach teens to be good and CONFIDENT lovers who do not cave into pressure to have sex if they don't want to, and know how to be safe if they do want to.

Think about it for a moment. Say you are a girl - a REALLY shy girl - and for the first time ever, you have a boy paying attention to you and begging you to let him have sex with you. Far too often, those girls don't know how to say no, and they also don't want the boy to stop paying attention to them. So... they give in. And then they get pregnant because he also insisted that she wouldn't make him use a condom if she loved him.

HOWEVER, if this shy girl took a class where she learned to relax. Learned to choose the right form of birth control for her. Had actual experience with sex - enough to know that she doesn't need to depend on the first boy that is nice to her... I completely believe that she would then be strong enough to say: "Hey! If all you want to do is play around on me, I'm okay with that (or not as the case may be), but let's be smart about this. Let's make sure we don't get pregnant!"

Now, you may be wondering why I am posting this on my husband's blog and not mine; well, here's why.

So I am talking to my hubby about this kind of school, and he's nodding in agreement. He thinks that it would be a good idea too. Then I made the comment of:

"And the best part is that once a person warms up and gains a bit of confidence, the class would be almost impossible to fail!"

He replies: "Oh no! People would be failing it left and right!"

I'm seriously confused! "What? Why?"

"They'd be like, I still don't know what I'm doing, so I have to take the class again, heh heh."

I laugh! "Oh! I get it, but why would they need to fail to take the class again?"

He scoffs: "Well duh, there'd be way too much demand for the class and not enough space."

Especially from the boys, lol! So I ask: "But wait, do you think boys would even go for it. I mean I do know - or at least I've heard - that teenaged boys will often sit around a room masturbating (meaning a bunch of them together), but it's ingrained in American society that boys touching boys is wrong and I just can't see too many boys signing up for a class that would require them to practice on boys for a bit before they got to the girls."

Hubby shrugs. "That's an ego thing. If it's just one or two boys doing it, and then words gets out, they get embarrassed because then people think they are having gay sex. BUT if it's a bunch of boys sitting around doing it (mutual masturbation or practicing on each other) THEN it's not such a big deal. They are all in it together. They know that if any ONE of them rats on another, then he's ratting on himself too."

Okay, so basically boys probably would want to take a class where they could learn how to be good and responsible lovers, even if it meant having to practice on other boys for a bit. Cool!

Then the conversation moved on.

I ask: "Could you imagine if this WAS a class that was offered in highschool? Then one day, the accreditation board comes in to make sure that basic standard are being met at the school, and they go around asking students: what's you favorite class? No! Imagine this, they walk into a math class where everyone is staring at the teacher like they are half-zombies, and the accreditation board asks them what their favorite class is, and they all jump up and shout: SEX ED!"

James doesn't even skip a beat; he immediately pretends to be checking off a box on a form and mutters: "That's the 15th class to say that today..."

LMAO!