Mourning the Loss of Comprehensive Sex-Ed
Article and Art by Claudia Garcia
These Are Not Invitations
Nipple piercings to feel pretty,
speaking with human decency in my tone,
not wearing my bra.
These are not invitations to disrespect me.
It is not teasing.
I want to be comfortable, nice, and safe.
Having to mean mug, to move your gaze,
sharpening my tone, stiffening my muscles and movements,
to ward off the possibilities of lingering fingers, pictures, a shadow, further violations.
Yet still you persist,
I have to flash a fake engagement ring to chase you away,
you respect a fictional man more than the very real woman in obvious discomfort in front of you,
occasionally not even that is a solution to the problem trailing me. Just leave me alone; your absence is preferred.
I would rather remain restful, present, and at peace.
Mourning the Loss of Comprehensive Sex-Ed
Little pisses me off more than a public school dress code in the Bible Belt. I was four when a boy pulled up my dress on top of the slide at recess for everyone to see. I always wore shorts after that. Spaghetti straps got you slut shamed in front of your peers. My jeans with knee holes were abhorrent, but the guy with shorts smaller than anything I own gets to learn in class while I sit in the office to wait for my parents. I have needed bras since I was ten and when a male classmate would snap my bra strap, it was I who was at fault for having it showing. In the first class I had freshman year of high school, I was called “jailbait” by a group of upperclassmen, I was the only girl in the room. It’s a reference to the jail time they would serve because pursuing me sexually would constitute statutory rape. I got asked to raise both my arms above my head while walking to class to see if an authority figure could look at my midriff. Creep behavior if you ask me. I sped away in the other direction, scoffing. I never exactly jump for joy here. There is nothing inherently sexual about the stomach or shoulders as sex is not their primary function. If you are getting sexually teased or aroused by children at a school, maybe you should consider a different line of work instead of demonizing them. These kinds of things are the breeding grounds of victim blaming and body shaming that fuck with your self esteem as one transitions from adolescence to early adulthood. This problem is perpetuated in Texas through the sex-ed curriculum, or lack thereof. The only option available is an extracurricular “baby” class with a plastic doll to carry around as a representation of the hardships of being a parent. You can see the raging success of the program as we have some of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation. Saying abstinence is the best birth control is akin to the advice of staying at home to avoid being in a car crash, when you could’ve just said seatbelts save lives. Abstinence education leads to an increased need for abortion, when this could be easily mitigated with comprehensive sex education in public schools. The current system allows for predators to easily take advantage of children because those who live in ignorance can be more easily manipulated. If I had comprehensive sex ed as part of my public school education, maybe I would have realized I was being groomed sooner rather than later.
In the Americas, it began with colonizer ideologies of Catholicism and other Christianities, all tied with women’s sexual liberty being seen as sinful. This is clearly illustrated in the blaming of women for all the suffering that exists through a sexual connotation in the story of Adam and Eve. Every Indigenous person they would come across near the equator was seen as less civilized because more skin was showing. Forcing others into what they considered modest, while stripping pieces of culture apart. Mind you, it is fucking hot across the equator. But this innovative, cultural, breathable clothing became prohibited, and it continues to be discouraged today while global temperatures keep rising.
One way to change the way we as a society think about sex to better help our youth, is by de-stigmatizing it. For example, there exists discrimination against sex workers like women strippers, while nude male models in fine art are more respected. This is something that should be examined, especially since the latter wears far less for much longer. Everyone involved deeply respects each other, while most patrons of strip clubs don’t see stripping as a feat of strength, acrobatics, and intense performance. For me it was a right of passage to study and draw the nude body because there was a time in art history and in most history, where women were not allowed to do so and were thus deemed unfit to be considered masters of their craft. We as a society so deeply entrenched in Christianity, to the point where it appears on our currency, should stop seeing the naked body as inherently sexual, a tease, or something to be disrespected; instead we should prioritize spaces where bodies can be celebrated.