Sex Ed: Why The Bedroom Belongs in the Classroom

It's hard to make a pencil and sharpener look sexy but use your imagination here.

It’s hard to make a pencil and sharpener look sexy but use your imagination here.

There’s an interesting [read: incredibly dangerous] tension between teenagers who do not want to talk about sexual health with their teachers, teachers who often cannot inform students any further than an ineffective abstinence-only education, and the parents who threaten legal action when their children are introduced to the concept of intercourse as anything more than a marital, procreational act.

It’s completely understandable that teens feel squeamish about sex education in the classroom. Why? Teens get completely mixed messages. In the media, everyone is having very sexy sex. In the classroom, the lesson plans sound like they were created in a different century: sex is taboo, secretive, and illicit before marriage. Of course teens are clamming up in the classroom, feeling guilty about their actions after hours, and engaging in high-risk sexual activity regardless.

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Love Letters: Sexual Pressure, Harassment and Rape

Love Letters

‘Love Letters’ is a Petal + Sass blog feature that regularly asks a group of diverse women in their 20’s and 30’s about their experiences with health, sex, emotional wellness, body image, college, careers – and what they wish they had known themselves as teenagers. Visit the Love Letters’ To My Former Self page to learn more about the contributors.

Question posed: Were you ever sexually harassed or pressured into engaging in sexual activity that you were uncomfortable with as a teenager? If so, how did you handle the situation? What would you advise a young person who was being pressured or harassed today?

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Love Letters: Body Image & ‘Puberty The Remix’

Love Letters

‘Love Letters’ is a Petal + Sass blog feature that regularly asks a group of diverse women in their 20’s and 30’s about their experiences with health, sex, emotional wellness, body image, college, careers – and what they wish they had known themselves as teenagers. Visit the Love Letters’ To My Former Self page to learn more about the contributors.

Question posed: How did you feel about your body as a teenager? How has your body changed over the last 10 years? Has your body perception changed as you got older?

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What Your Body Says To The World (Versus What It Says To You)

body image

The media (what you see on tv, in magazines, and in theaters) is a wildly messy and confusing melting pot of body shaming, unrealistic expectations, social and sexual pressures, and more than a few heaping tablespoons of misogyny. It’s hard to find a plot that doesn’t involve the abuse of women in some way, and yet it is simultaneously glamorized and glossed over to make us all think “should I be more like that?”

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