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Getting comfortable with our …
never mind, I can’t say it

Sex ed has got to be the most embarrassing subject a high school could possibly teach. It’s also useless, since the only thing Ms. Wheeler lectures about is various forms of birth control: the pill, condoms, sponges, etc., all of which may be academically interesting but is still practically meaningless, since I don’t know any boys. Well, okay, I know Scott Walsh and a few other Harper Woodbane guys—but I can’t imagine ever being in a position where exchanging sexually transmitted diseases with any of them would be an option. Learning how to protect myself from chlamydia is nice, but if Ms. Wheeler really wants to sexually educate me, she could start by teaching me how to talk to a boy without choking on my own saliva.

Today in sex ed Ms. Wheeler talked about what our “options” would be if we got pregnant, which is ridiculous, since everyone knows that if you get pregnant, you get kicked out of school. The Westfield School offers a few key perks that our local public schools do not, including

a) no one ever brings a gun to school.

b) every student goes on to a four-year college.

c) none of the students are ever pregnant.

Those are the rules.

Still, Ms. Wheeler told us that if we got pregnant—presumably through immaculate conception, since 96 percent of us aren’t sleeping with anyone—then we could get an abortion, or we could carry the baby to term before giving it up for adoption.

Rachel was taking copious notes, I assume because she thought there was going to be a test on this material, not because she was truly worried about getting impregnated. Rachel, like me, doesn’t have even a dot next to her name. I also couldn’t help glancing at Mischa(!) to see how she was taking all this. She sat in the back of the room, painting her nails, looking bored and virginal. Playing it cool, Mischa.

Pearl raised her hand and asked, “But if you get pregnant, can’t you keep it?” We laughed at her because, like, no, you can’t keep it. We’ve all met Pearl’s mom. She’s the dean of admissions at Harvard Business School, and she’s just counting down the days until Pearl is old enough to be CEO of a multinational corporation. If Pearl thinks she can just give all that up to become some child raiser, she is even more of a moron than I thought.

Ms. Wheeler, though, is the sort of teacher who doesn’t believe in telling students that they’re wrong—which may be why she teaches sex ed as opposed to math. So she just hinted to Pearl that it’s hard to be a full-time college student while mothering a toddler. Duh, Pearl. Then Ms. Wheeler had us all say “vagina” a bunch of times in unison, so that we will become comfortable with our vaginas.

Do you see what I mean about sex ed?

© 2010 Leila Sales