By Savannah Robinson
Sex Education (Homeschool Edition) shares the struggles of receiving sex education from a parent, instead of the typical health class format. It follows the stories of Amelia and Savannah who recount the good, the bad, and the ugly of their DIY sex education. Readers will learn about the consequences of a value-based sex-ed and receive tips for how to discuss sex with their children.
I am a homeschool survivor. No, I don’t mean survivor in the sense that I escaped a cult, was sheltered from the evil outside world, or received a half-baked education. I mean survivor in the sense that I taught myself long division from a textbook, started learning Latin in elementary school, and received sex-ed from my mother. I will never forget the “girls trip” my mom took me on, which began with the promise of bonding and ended with me learning about venereal diseases. I can still hear the ironically upbeat jingle the “Passport to Purity” CD played right before the narrator told you about a horror story about a girl who ruined her life by having premarital sex. By the end of the trip, I had memorized every stain on the passenger dashboard.
I suppose I was taught about deadly STDs and pregnant high school dropouts. But nothing quite stuck with me like the horror stories about the irreversible emotional trauma of premarital sex. While my public-school friends were taught about how their bodies functioned, I listened to success stories of couples who waited until the altar to have their first kiss. The featured couple gushed about how, though difficult, it was the best decision they ever made. My mom explained that this form of abstinence was extreme, complaining that the CD was too conservative, even for her. But the message still stuck with me, though I tried to dismiss it. I knew that even if I didn’t believe it, other people did. The less physical contact I had, the purer I would be considered, and no man would ever want a broken woman who had been intimate with someone else.
Once we got to the hotel, I remember my mom doing a “science experiment” with me. She turned on the tap and poured hot water over a red and blue gummy bear, while she held them together. They fused, their middle turning purple. The moral was that once you have sex with someone, you lose a part of yourself that you can never get back. We sat on the stiff coach, snacking on gummy bears, while she taught me that sex is not just the meeting of bodies but the combining of souls. You’re no longer in a relationship, you’re soulmates. You’re no longer desirable, you’re used. You’re no longer red, you’re purple.
I have spent my adult life unlearning the shame and judgemental attitude that this type of sex education caused. Yet, I don’t blame my mother; her tone was always kind, and she always asked for my input. She was only teaching me what she believed to be true. Growing up in a small North Carolina mountain town, she was one of the lucky ones who made it out to a small private university in Tennessee. She was never exposed to a world outside of purity culture. She was simply passing on what she knew to be true. I was just the one to unlearn it. Yet, out of most of my homeschooled friends, I was the lucky one. At least I was taught about sex.
My homeschooled friend Amelia stared at the glow of her phone screen in the dark, long after she should have been asleep. “What! Why is he putting that in there!” she whisper-exclaimed, now too shocked to be able to go to sleep. “I thought this was supposed to be innocent.”
This was how my friend Amelia learned what sex was: Harry Potter fan fiction. She laughs now recalling the memory of trying to read a wholesome story about her favorite childhood characters being happy and alive without the evil Voldemort. “Freaking Harry Potter! I just wanted to read about Fred still being alive, and the next thing I know I’m reading about Fred and Hermione doing it.”
Nobody wants to learn what sex is by reading Harry Potter fan fiction, written by some 17-year-old on the internet who thinks that “magic wand” is an excellent way to describe a penis. If you’ve ever ventured onto Wattpad, or any other fan fiction site, you’re probably wondering “What type of parent would ever let their kid have access to that type of site at such a young age?” Amelia was 13 when this happened; her parents chose not to give her sex-ed. All of her knowledge and values regarding sex had to be figured out on her own.
The only thing her mom (and teacher) told her about sex was to “abstain from it.” At the time Amelia didn’t even know what sex was, making this an easy enough rule to follow. But the reality of sex is, everyone has a different definition of what it encompasses, and this is especially tricky when moral principles are included. When Amelia was 18 years old, her mom called her a “whore” for engaging in a physical relationship with her boyfriend, even though they never had intercourse. There was no conversation regarding what happened, just the disdain of a mother who saw her daughter failing a moral standard she had never taught her.
However, Amelia was coerced into this physical relationship, regularly participating in acts that she was uncomfortable with because her boyfriend told her that she would do it “if she loved him.” Nobody taught her the importance of consent in a relationship. In fact, she believed sex was solely for the pleasure of the man and didn’t know that women could attain any benefits from sex. Her boyfriend convinced her sex was transactional: her body in exchange for affection. But, living in purity culture, the price was higher than just your body: it's giving up your social acceptance, and, in Amelia’s case, her relationship with her mom and the respect of a teacher.
Yet, this contempt of Amelia’s mother did not extend to her brother. Amelia watched as a topic that was considered “taboo” between her and her parents became a joke with her brother.
“I wonder what Sam is doing in there.” Her mother raised her eyebrows suggestively at his closed door, which he and his girlfriend were behind. “Or more like, I don’t wanna know.”
Her dad put down his beer and laughed, “Well ya know, boys will be boys.”
Amelia stayed silent, raging inwardly about how her brother’s sexuality was considered normal, while she was a “whore.” Ironic, since she had never officially even learned what sex was in the first place.
It was cathartic in a way to compare notes with Amelia about our sex-ed and know that I wasn’t alone in how conflicted I felt about sex growing up. One thing we both experienced in our sex education was the assumption that men had sexual desire, but women did not. Women were the ones who were responsible for saying no because boys had these “uncontrollable urges” that were “part of their nature”.
Don’t let Amelia’s and my story scare you; not all homeschool sex-eds are borderline traumatic. My friend Lorelai views her homeschool sex-ed experience as a blessing. She got to learn sex-ed from a curriculum on her living room couch, with her mom willing to have an open conversation about challenging concepts. She didn’t have to endure the awkward lecture from a teacher, with 20 immature peers. She had the space and time to learn about it when she was ready.
Yet, even now, I still appreciate my homeschool experience. I got to travel to amazing places as a field trip; my family went to Canada, Maine, Myrtle Beach, Atlanta, etc. Who else could say they spent their Monday in October going to a national park? I got a learning experience that was perfectly tailored to my needs. I could spend extra time on the subjects I struggled in and do advanced work in the subjects I excelled at. I learned from an early age how to teach myself from a textbook, a skill that has greatly aided me in college.
I built a strong relationship with my mom in which I got to see the passions and genius hidden behind her motherhood. She taught me how to write creatively and would read my stories about my stuffed animals and orphan girls who lived in the woods. We would have “editing sessions” where we would sit down and edit my work. Even though the entire page was filled with red pen markups, she made me feel like I was a real author.
I wonder what my mom would think if we sat down and she read this story. Would she be disappointed in me? Would she feel like she had failed as a parent? I can just see her red pen in the margins, “Was it really that bad?” I’ve never told her how I felt about my sex-ed experience, and I’m not sure that I ever will. After all, it doesn’t change the past, and I’m not sure it’s worth the price of our relationship.
So, in case you’re ever in the position of talking to your kids about sex, here’s what I wish someone would have told my mom:
- Keep sex education objective: regardless of your values, teach your kids about contraceptives. Studies show that teaching abstinence increases STI transmission rates, since contraception isn’t taught.
- Enable your kids to think critically about sex, instead of handing them your moral prescription. Teaching them to form their own values regarding sex will prevent shame and help them to create values they will stick to.
- Emphasize the importance of consent and how to give it. Whether your child chooses to abstain from sex or not, it is likely they will end up being asked to have sex. Teaching teens what is and isn’t consent can help them to avoid traumatic situations.
- Keep your standards the same for boys and girls…we notice. Guys should be held equally responsible for upholding responsible sex practices.
- Provide a resource for them to discuss sex outside of the home, especially if you cannot be an objective source for sex education. I felt like I could never ask my mom questions about sex, since I knew that she really just valued abstinence. I wish I had a source I could’ve gone to, besides the Internet, to help me with my sex-related questions as I became an adult.