Just Kidding Around:
Sex, Youth, and Education
by Beverly Fisher, Slut at Large and Woman of Easy Virtue

WIn the sixth grade, I had my first kiss. It was a horrific experience, and in retrospect I still blush with the memory. I had my first childhood boyfriend, Darren. We went all around the playground together, holding hands, that sort of thing. Utterly innocent. One night, with my parent’s permission (and vehicular assistance), Darren took me to see the movie “Ice Castles” which was being played at the local high school theater. I think it was a fundraiser for their football team or some such. It was a dollar to get in.

Darren and I sat about midway up, holding hands in the darkened school theater. It was very romantic and I was just giddy. I’d always been the ugly duckling at school, teased for having freckles and being plain. And now I had a boyfriend who liked me and wanted to hold my hand in the dark. I felt wonderful.

Darren got up to go to the bathroom. When he came back, he sat down next to me, and kissed me. Just like that, my first kiss. It was fantastic. It sent little electric shocks all through me, settling somewhere below my tummy. This was a chaste kiss mind you, no tongue. French kissing was gross, right?

Afterwards, Darren got up and left again. I was so busy being suffused in the glow of that first kiss, I really wasn’t paying attention. He came back... and kissed me again. I was in heaven. It was so sweet and I liked Darren so much. The situation repeated: Darren left for a while, came back and kissed me. And again. This time he offered me candy. He had Jolly Ranchers, green apple ones too.

I don’t know what made me turn around and look behind me. But I did. There they were, the most popular kids in school, boys and girls, sitting in the back row of the school theater. Laughing. Darren confessed that they’d been bribing him with Jolly Ranchers to kiss me. After all, how funny to make someone kiss the ugly girl.

I came unglued. I was flying over those seats between us. I grabbed the most popular boy in school by his collar and yanked his face within an inch of mine, explaining very coldly and clearly that if he told anyone at school about this the next day, I would quite simply kill him. My rage was palpable. You could feel it. I emanated anger and righteous shame. I meant what I said. And from the fear in his eyes, he believed me.

Not a word was said at school the next day, which I still find hard to believe.

I didn’t blame Darren for getting paid to kiss me. Maybe I should have. But he certainly seemed to enjoy kissing me, despite the circumstances, and I definitely had enjoyed kissing him. So after our little adventure at “Ice Castles” we continued to kiss periodically and I just loved it. I wanted to be around him all the time, perhaps to excess. I was a pretty needy, lonely kid. I think he was a little uncomfortable with my overly enthusiastic attentions. He was, after all, a 12-year-old boy, not so far from the days when girls gave you “cooties.” So that relationship didn’t last. What “first kiss” relationship does?

Sex education

Sex education takes place in the schools and at home with our parents. But it also takes place in the high school theater, the backseat of a ‘57 Chevy, during recess, late at night in the park. Experimentation with our limited knowledge is a key part of the educational process.

My formal sex education was very thorough. I had a basic class in the fifth grade, where they explained the birds and the bees to us, and then they took the girls aside separately and taught us about menstruation. I don’t know what they taught the boys during this time. Probably about erections and wet dreams and the like. They were very clear, however, that sex was something grown-ups did. Not kids. I don’t recall them mentioning masturbation, either. And of course, this was all before the AIDS crisis, so safe sex wasn’t an issue. There was plenty of discussion about pregnancy, however.

Of course, there were some kids who didn’t take that “grown-ups only” stuff to heart. My brother, for example, lost his virginity in the sixth grade, to a 12-year-old girl. Obviously, I didn’t find out about that until years later. But I knew in high school he was quite the player, and he always had a girl or two on the line.

My next exposure to sex education was also during elementary school. My parents gave my brother and I two books to read, both by Peter Mayle. One was called “Where Did I Come From?” and the second was called “What’s Happening to Me?” They were illustrated books (with the cutest little cartoon people) depicting sex, the sex organs, what a woman looks like during pregnancy, the stages of development of the fetus, and more. The “What’s Happening to Me?” book was all about puberty, growing pubic hair, getting your period, your voice changing, things like that. All the horrors of puberty, laid out in easy-to-read print with cute cartoons. I remember one cartoon in particular, a picture of a woman with curly blonde hair looking down at her vulva, which was covered with a thatch of dark hair. The caption read something along the lines of “See, you can be a blonde and a brunette at the same time!”

One thing that was clear in both of these books was that sex is something “mommies and daddies” do. Not only do you have to be a grown-up, you have to be married too.

In the eighth grade, I was 14 years old. My junior high school had a sex education elective class. It wasn’t easy to get in, there were a limited number of seats. But everyone wanted to take the class. It didn’t turn out to be nearly as exciting as we had hoped. It was much of the same material we learned in the fifth grade – pregnancy and stages of fetal development, that sort of thing. However the boys weren’t separated from the girls when we got to the part about menstruation. I don’t honestly remember much about the class, though a few things stick out in my mind.

First, they were very clear about abstinence, that not having sex until we were adults was the best course of action. I also remember some talk about breast cancer, and they passed around a faux breast with “lumps” in it for us to feel. Finally, I remember that we took part in a national television show about sex education. A couple of schools around the country were chosen, and this camera crew came in and shot sections of our class. They asked us questions and we answered. I was featured for a few seconds, talking about those Peter Mayle books my parents gave me when I was a kid. It was such a big deal to be on TV, I don’t think any of us in that class remember much else. It was my 15-seconds of fame.

Just say no

Proponents of “abstinence only” education insist that such programs are highly effective. They cite prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy, and “out of wedlock” childbearing. They insist that teen sexual activity is also linked to emotional problems, such as depression, and increased risk of suicide. They add that abstinence programs reduce high-risk behaviors, such as sex, smoking, and alcohol and drug use.

If it sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is. There are no legitimate studies that indicate that abstinence-only programs are effective in preventing any of these things. People at the Heritage Foundation will try to tell you differently, but they’ll also try to tell you there were WMDs in Iraq. And if you believe that, I’ve got some swampland in Florida I can sell you. Real cheap, too.

The idea is to teach kids to “just say no” to sex... and to avoid mentioning birth control at all costs. They want to teach that the safest sex is no sex, which is true – just highly unlikely. Kids have sex. They do. I know it’s hard to believe, after all, everyone reading this lost their virginity to their spouse on their wedding night. You sure you don’t want that Florida property?

Indeed, according to D. Kirby, National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Emerging Answers: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy, “There do not currently exist any abstinence-only programs with reasonably strong evidence that they actually delay the initiation of sex or reduce its frequency.” Instead, the government has changed performance measures for abstinence-only education to make the programs seem successful. Further, it has censored studies on effective sex-education programs.

Sex education does not increase promiscuity. Of 68 studies on family life and sex education in a scientific review, 65 found no associated increases in sexual behavior, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute.

Proponents of abstinence-only education tout the so-called effectiveness of programs such as “The Best Friends” program, which began in 1987 and operates in more than 100 schools across the U.S. The curriculum consists of a “character building” program, which discusses such topics as friendship, love and dating, alcohol and drug abuse, self-respect, decision-making, and AIDS and STDs. The idea is to scare the hell out of these girls when it comes to drugs and AIDS and unplanned pregnancies, without ever giving them any tools for truly dealing with these situations. Heaven forbid we should show a teenage girl a condom.

I know when the my daughter’s fifth grade class had their sex-education class, she was taught about AIDS, but not one word was mentioned about condoms. I was furious. I immediately got out a condom and showed it to her, showed her how to put it on (over my fingers), explained to her about how it prevented semen and the HIV virus from passing through. Then, because she was only in fifth grade after all, I blew the condom up and showed her how they also made great balloons.

A bad example

I myself am not a good example of how to prevent kids from having sex at a young age, or how to prevent teen pregnancy. I’m a slut, and I’ve been one for a very long time.

In the end, for me, despite all of the education I received in school about sex – and that I should avoid it – it came down to something my mother had told me. It is true that parents are the greatest influence on their children, school notwithstanding. My mother told me that sex was something you do when you’re really in love, and that you should only do it with someone you love.

The flaw in this logic is that, when you’re 15, you really believe you’re in love. You really believe that it’s going to last forever, that you’ll be with this person even after you graduate high school and college, that you’re going to marry that person someday. Kids just don’t understand that these childhood relationships aren’t lasting. It’s just that they seem so real, feel so real at the time. Additionally, to a kid, next week is a million years away. They can’t imagine being 30. Time is relative to a teenager.

So school education aside, I lost my virginity when I was 15. But it wasn’t until I was 16 that I really started getting serious about having sex. The fact was, at first, it was a painful experience. I had friends who assured me that I just had to do it “like, 10 times” and after that it would feel really great.

So once I’d gotten the whole task of losing my virginity over and done with, it would be a few months before I found someone who could help me get those “like, 10 times” out of the way, so I could start having fun. Greg was kind and gentle and careful with me, and despite the initial pain I began to enjoy the sensation of sex, perhaps even before I’d managed to do it 10 times.

From there it was game on. I was hooked. Forget pot, forget alcohol, sex was my drug of choice. I enjoyed it so much, from the first kiss to the last gasping post-orgasmic sigh. I pursued my new favorite hobby with a fervor.

But teen relationships are, as I mentioned, tenuous things at best. I split up with Greg when his best friend fell for me. I didn’t want to be the cause of the end of a friendship. Even then, my friendships were more valuable to me than any sexual encounter could be, and I valued friendships in others as well. So that was the end of that.

I found David next, a 23-year-old musician (He was a bass player. I’ve always had a thing for bass players – they tend to be so moody and intense.). I couldn’t wait to get to bed with David. We were forever looking for new places to make love. Like all teenagers, finding places to have sex is half the battle in having sex. It’s not enough just to want to do it. You’ve got to have a place to do it that’s private and will assure lack of interruption, especially by adults.

David and I managed to do it in a variety of places, including the front seat of his car. He had a white Volvo with bucket seats. We had been out walking and our shoes were muddy; the next day, we could see the smears of mud on the dashboard and steering wheel. David’s brother even asked about the mud. All we could do was giggle helplessly. I still smile when I see a white Volvo. Can you imagine? Bucket seats. Sheesh. The lengths I would go to for a “fix.”

Eventually, David got a house up in the mountains, and to my parent’s horror, I moved in. You can’t really quite call it running away from home, because they knew where I was and who I was with. But it was a nightmare for them, to be sure. But regular daily sex was like a dream for me. I was in constant ecstasy. I began having orgasms for the first time during sex, a pleasure previously reserved for masturbation only. It was incredible. I wanted more. And more. And more. David didn’t seem to mind.

But David was one screwed-up camper. This, to me, is part of the problem with teen sex. It’s not the actual sex itself, and the inherent risks of disease or pregnancy, but the emotional toll poor relationship choices take. Teenagers, due to sheer inexperience, are not good judges of character, moral fiber, and just plain mental health. We see someone who’s being nice to us and assume that will always be the case. We don’t know the warning signs for someone who is verbally or physically abusive. We don’t know how to tell if someone truly has their shit together or not. What I know now is that any 23-year-old man who is interested in a 16-year-old girl has a problem. He’s not a healthy human being, from a psychological standpoint. My poor parents. I know I’m the cause of many a gray hair on their heads.

Knocked up

Despite a very strong working knowledge of birth control and how to use it, during one of my periodic breakups with David, I went off the pill. My teenage reasoning was that I was no longer having sex, therefore I no longer needed the pill. Us grown-up women know that you just stay on the pill, whether you have a lover or not. Never know when one might pop up, so to speak.

David and I got back together. We went and saw Prince’s “Purple Rain,” went back to his place, and had sex. That was the night I got pregnant. I was 16 years old.

It was a horrible time in my life. I loved David with all my heart, and thought he loved me too. When he found out I was pregnant, he refused to speak to me, refused to see me. I cried more than I’d ever cried in my life. I kept trying to see him, to talk to him. He wouldn’t have anything to do with me.

I was lost and alone and very scared. I couldn’t tell my parents (or didn’t think I could). So I did what I have always done when I don’t know what to do: research. Lots of research. I was in the library for weeks, reading about my options. Option One: marry the father and have the baby. Not an option, really. Moving on. Option Two: have the baby and be a single mother at 16.

I read about welfare, about organizations that would help me and support me while I was pregnant. I thought about friends of mine who had made this choice. One girl, Jeannie, used to scream at her son “I wish you’d never been born!” Another girl, Ann, would leave her baby with her parents and then disappear for days. Neither one was a very good mother. And somehow I was mature enough to realize that I wouldn’t be a good mother, either. I couldn’t even take care of myself, let alone another human being. And I knew that there would be a part of me that would always resent that child, angry at him or her for ruining my life. Anger that the child would definitely sense, on some level. I also knew that my parents would not support me in any way – that I’d be on my own with this child. That was a scary thought, too.

Option Three: Adoption. There were so many wonderful organizations that helped girls with adoption. I learned about groups that would take me in during my pregnancy, feed and house and clothe me, support me totally and pay for my hospital bills when I had the child. All of them were Christian-run organizations. I could pick the baby’s parents, pick people who I liked and who agreed with me on all manner of things from politics to religion.

But I just couldn’t see myself doing it. I have a very strong maternal instinct, I always have. I knew I that if I carried David’s baby to term, I would have to keep it. I couldn’t just give it up to strangers and never see it again. I knew I couldn’t feel that baby moving inside my body and then never feel it, never hold it in my arms. Selfish though it may have been, I knew I wasn’t capable or strong enough to put a child up for adoption.

That left me with Option Four: Abortion. I knew this was a serious, serious choice to make. I knew that once made, I could never go back on it, never change my mind. I knew I was choosing to end the life of my child. I read stories from women who had had abortions, some of them were glad they made the choice, others were devastated and regretted it deeply. All of them commented that it was something they never forgot, that the abortion became a permanent part of their lives, their history. Many commented about how they would see children or even adults that would be “about the right age” as their aborted child would have been, and how that caused them intense grief.

I read about how some believe abortion is murder. I read both sides of the issue, pro-life and pro-choice. All agreed that it was a serious choice to make. I came to the conclusion that, for me, aborting a child before its capable of living on its own outside of the mother’s body was not murder. If it was, then birth control is murder too, for isn’t an unfertilized egg nothing more than a potential life? I felt awful about letting go of David’s child. But I knew which choice I had to make.

I had the abortion on Halloween, 1984.

I know there are some reading this who will strongly disagree with the choice I made and my rationale behind it. They will accuse me of justification and worse. And they may be right. I only know the choice I made at the time seemed like the right choice. And I know that, having made an informed choice, I have never regretted it. Like the women I read about, I have never forgotten it. It was and still is a sad day in my life. Not a Halloween passes that I don’t remember what happened on that day. I grieved the loss of that child, and still do. But I still believe it was the right decision for me.

Just the facts, ma’am

Teen pregnancy is a serious damn issue. Annually, teen pregnancy costs the U.S. at least $7 billion. Nearly four out of every 10 young women become pregnant at least once before they turn 20. That’s nearly one million a year. Eighty percent of these pregnancies are unintended, and 79 percent are to unmarried teens, according to Students Against Drunk Driving.

Nearly 80 percent of unmarried teen mothers are on welfare. Teen mothers are far less likely to complete high school than their peers.

The U.S. has the highest teen pregnancy and birth rates in the western industrialized world. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, despite recent drops in the teen pregnancy rate in the U.S., our adolescent pregnancy rate is still almost twice that of Canada and Great Britain, and four times that of France and Sweden.

Why? Quite simply the exact opposite of abstinence-only education. Adults in other countries send the clear message to teens that bearing children is something you do as an adult, in an adult relationship, financially independent of one’s parents. The society in Europe is simply not as permissive of teen childbirth. Yet they are overall more accepting than Americans of teens having sex. According to the Guttmacher Report on Public Policy, “In France and Sweden in particular, teen sexual expression is seen as normal and positive, but there is also widespread expectation that sexual intercourse will take place within committed relationships. (In fact, relationships among U.S. teens tend to be more sporadic and of shorter duration.) Equally strong is the expectation that young people who are having sex will take actions to protect themselves and their partners from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.”

Indeed, state and public schools in England, Wales, France, Sweden, and most of Canada teach a strong sex ed program and “provide comprehensive information about prevention. In addition, the media is used more frequently in government-sponsored campaigns for promoting responsible sexual behavior,” says the Guttmacher Report.

So let’s get this straight: the more we talk to kids about sex and birth control, the less likely they’ll get pregnant and have STDs? Damn skippy. The U.S., with its oh-so-smart abstinence-only education, just keeps producing teen pregnancies. How can we ignore the facts? Ignore, ignorant, it’s all the same thing. We keep trying to legislate morality and it just doesn’t work. We may not like the fact that our teenagers are having sex, but they are. And all the moaning and moralizing by the religious right isn’t going to stop it.

I’m glad you’re dead

So what we learn about sex, as children, we learn from adults. Our parents, teachers, and society as a whole play a vital role in that education. But sometimes adults have a more direct hand in the sexual education of children. Some of us learned about sex from adults the hard way.

My very first sexual experience occurred when I was just 10 years old. My mother’s family were visiting at Christmastime, including my Aunt Zelaine and her brother, my Uncle Glenn. Uncle Glenn was born with a deformed mouth, and so he had a tough time speaking. His words would come out garbled and mushy. He was also learning disabled, or “retarded” as we called it back then. Though in his 60s, he acted and spoke very much like a child, and shuffled when he walked.

He liked to hug me. He would hug me and press his hands against my bottom, pushing my pelvis up against his body. I could feel something hard there, and it frightened me. He would follow me around the house, trying to hug me.

One evening we were watching television and he sat down next to me. I was engrossed in the television program. Then I felt something warm in my lap. His hand was on my crotch. I thought it must be an accident, so I just picked up his hand and put it on the arm of the chair. Moments later, the hand was back on my crotch. I was so frightened and uncomfortable I just got up and left.

I knew something was wrong. I knew it wasn’t okay for him to touch me like that, to hug me like that. But I wasn’t sure. And I had this knowing, somehow, that to accuse someone of touching me inappropriately was a serious charge indeed, and I had better be really sure. So I endured the occasional fondling and touching, the horrible hugging.

Then, one afternoon, the entire family packed up and left the house, leaving me alone with Uncle Glenn. It’s funny how childhood memories work. My memory is that they all went to Elitches, the local amusement park, and that they were gone for eight hours. I know now this isn’t possible. It was Christmastime, Elitches was closed for the season. But my child-memory insists that they were gone all day, having fun without me, leaving me to Uncle Glenn’s tender mercies. The fact of the matter is, they had gone to the grocery store, and were gone for maybe an hour or so. But for me, it was an eternity.

As soon as they left, I knew somehow that I was in serious trouble. I knew I had to hide, to protect myself from Uncle Glenn. I crawled under my brother’s bunk bed, behind some boxes of toys. And I lay there, listening to my heart pounding, smelling the dusty blue carpet, feeling its scratchy fibers beneath my fingers. I tried not to breathe, to be silent, but it sounded like my breathing and heartbeat were so loud anyone could hear me. I was absolutely terrified.

I could hear Glenn calling for me with his deformed mouth, all through the house, searching for me. “Be-erly... Be-erly... wheah ah you?” This went on for what seemed like an eternity. “Wheah ah you?” And I just held my breath under that bunk bed, petrified. He even came in the room, shuffling around, calling my name. I thought it would never end.

Finally, my mother and the others came home. I was out from under that bed like a shot. I went straight to my mother and told her what happened, the way he’d been touching me, the way he hugged me, all of it. She went ballistic. I’ve never seen her so angry to this day.

And yet solving the problem was as simple as telling Glenn, “Don’t you touch her anymore!” and he just nodded his head and said, “Okay,” – like telling a naughty child not to misbehave anymore.

I was never left alone with him after that. He died some years ago, and my mother and I had a toast. It seems terrible, to toast the death of someone, and yet it felt like such a relief to have him gone.

I realize now that experience, my first sexual experience, would come to shape so much of my life in so many ways. Not the least of which was becoming an escort. But that’s another rant.

And now?

Looking back on my sexual experiences as a child and adolescent, I see that the painful experiences probably outweighed the pleasurable ones, overall. I do wish that I had waited to lose my virginity, I wish that I hadn’t been date-raped when I was 17, I wish that I hadn’t gotten pregnant. However, most of my negative experiences surround failed relationships. I was so intent on having sex, I didn’t take the time to develop real and lasting relationships with my lovers. It was sex first, friends later – if indeed we ever got that far.

I was great at sex, just not so good at choosing partners that were healthy and well-adjusted. But then, what teenager is?

How do we tell our children “do as I say, not as I do?” It’s not an easy thing to raise a child, as I am doing, and hope that she chooses a different path, with regard to her sexuality, than the one I chose.

I talk openly about sex and sexuality with my daughter. We have discussed masturbation (I explained very carefully what a clitoris is and how important it is), we have discussed lovemaking in the context of a relationship. I am very clear with her about the need to use birth control and especially condoms. But I am even more emphatic that she choose to wait to have sex until she is older. I preach abstinence, but I keep condoms around the house in case she decides not to listen to me. After all, how often do teenagers listen to their parents?

With my child, I’m trying to be France or Sweden. I’m trying to be clear that sex is normal and healthy, but that it’s better done as an adult – if only because of the complex nature of relationships. I’m hoping that she’ll take up masturbation with a vengeance. We can’t expect our children to be asexual. Part of puberty is having natural sexual urges and drives. To pretend they aren’t there is the height of hubris and foolhardiness. I was even thinking about buying her a vibrator, when she heads off to college. The studious application of masturbatory techniques before leaving on a date can determine whether or not you end up in your own bed that night.

So I tell her: Your body is going to want to have sex. Your body is going to tell you it’s time. Your boyfriend (or girlfriend) is going to tell you it’s time. Every part of you will be screaming to just do it. But your body lies to you. It tricks you. Because while your body is ready, your mind and emotions are not. You are not, as a teenager, emotionally capable or able to have a healthy romantic relationship. Hell, I don’t know many adults that are capable of having a healthy romantic relationship. Relationships are complicated, and fraught with peril. The hurts that are done to us psychologically are the hardest ones to heal.

Unlike my mother, I haven’t told my daughter that sex is with someone you love. I learned myself that that just isn’t the best means of choosing to become physically involved with someone. Instead, I say that sex is something adults do, and one should best wait until they are an adult. Yet I also understand that sometimes it’s hard to listen to Mom. So if she’s not going to listen to that, listen to this: ALWAYS use a condom. Always. No exceptions, ever, under any circumstances.

I hope that when she finally decides to become sexually active, she’ll come and talk to me about it. I hope that we have a good enough relationship to support that. But if not, and the condoms start disappearing out of the medicine cabinet, I’m just going to quietly replace them, no questions asked.

I don’t know what the right answer is. I don’t know how to keep a teenager from having sex. I know that abstinence-only isn’t a good answer... but I also know that I had a strong education in birth control and got pregnant anyhow.

So like all parents, I cross my fingers and hope for the best. Having been down the dark road myself, it makes me shudder to think of her going there as well. I have friends who have daughters who are pregnant, or sexually active. I know some of my daughter’s schoolmates are sexually active – I can tell just by looking at them – and it gives me a big screaming case of the willies. The only thing I do know is that education happens. We get our sex education in the schools, we get it on the playground, we get it late at night in the bushes at the park. And, most importantly, we get our sex education from our parents. The way we behave, the things we say and do, all add up to knowledge for our children.

So I read. I learn. I continue my education. Not just for me, but for her.

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