I should have blogged about this last week but…
I’ve been busy. Very, very busy working on non-Jessica Darling book business that I hope to share with you all soon.
HiTops is a nonprofit adolescent health clinic and education center in Princeton. Since moving to the area five years ago, I’ve admired the organization’s work from afar. But I’m much happier admiring from up close. Last week I attended Talk to Me, a workshop on parent-teen communication presented by the HiTops Teen Council, a group of high school seniors who are rigorously trained as peer-to-peer sexual health educators.
I was totally blown away by how comfortable these seventeen-and-eighteen-year-olds were in fielding potentially mortifying questions (What are friends with benefits? How much of a role does drinking play in sexual activity? What counts as SEX? What counts as losing one’s virginity? ) from an audience that included their own parents. Their candid answers were far more insightful than most adults give this generation credit for. It seems very obvious to me that comprehensive sex education gives teens the information–the POWER–to make safer choices. (And, um, I’m not the only one that feels this way.) I couldn’t help but think that if such a program were available at Pineville High Jessica Darling could have found a more constructive outlet for all her angsty energy.
(Bonus! I met the vivacious force-of-nature Shelby Knox who is being honored at the HiTops Guardian Awards gala in May for her tireless work on behalf of youth and women’s health issues. I highly recommend The Education of Shelby Knox the documentary about–in Shelby’s own words–”[her] conversion from Southern Baptist virgin to feminist activist for comprehensive sex education.” It made me cry.)
As part of the Talk to Me program, we were asked write down three things we learned about sex from our parents. The full extent of the conversation I had with my parents about sex was limited to a half-hour film strip (BOOOOOOOOOOOP!) about the 3 Ps (puberty, periods, and pregnancy) that my mother made me watch with my best friend. Because this was such a defining point in my pre-adolescence, I’ve written about watching this film strip not once but twice. The first: My contribution about the infamous novel Forever in the essay collection Everything I Needed To Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume. The second: My contribution to My Little Red Book, a just-published collection of 92 first period stories edited by another ridiculously poised teenager Rachel Kauder Nalebuff who wants to take the shame and embarrassment out of this female rite of passage.
Thoughtful, factual talk is good. Not talking about these tricky topics won’t make them go away.
Tags: everything i needed to know about being a girl i learned from Judy Blume, HiTops, my little red book
