Cake

The study mentions the sexual revolution, feminism, and birth control helped a lot to level the playing field between men and women. As women’s value in society, economically, and socially increase so does our sexual self-worth. But how and what do women learn about sex growing up? When we’re young, we're little information suckers, taking in everything around us and running it through our bodies to see how it feels.

"Remember those fun sex-ed classes we all were required to attend -- the girls in one class, the boys in the other? While we are not exactly sure what happened in the boys' room, for us girls the entire world of female sexuality was contained in menstrual kits. So you mean to tell us that we are going to bleed soon, have to stick some weird cotton thing up there, and pray we don't die from toxic shock? Puberty sucks!

Two-dimensional pictures of the uterus look more like a cow's head with fallopian tubes for ears and horns than a part of our bodies. Boring at best, scary at worst. Pretty pink pads in Ziploc bags, and off we go to recess. Later, we learn that getting it on with the boys is something to fear.

Our gym teacher instructs the high school sex-ed class, which is kind of strange. Wearing her purple terry-cloth warm-up suit, she tells us all about the horrors of teen pregnancy and shows us positively frightening pictures of every STD under the sun. This is what happens to girls who give it up too early. You bad, bad girl, you. Of course, there is no mention of masturbation, of how sex can be fun, or of orgasm. In fact, there's no reference to pleasure at all." [Excerpt from Chapter One - From Birth to Babe]

A lot of fear, very little pleasure indeed.

As young women we learned about sexuality from our parents, our friends, television, movies, books and yes sex education. Fast forward to present day and unfortunately we see that sex ed has gone back to the days of the dark ages in recent years with the implementation of federally funded “abstinence-only” programs.

Tellingly the San Diego study found that abstinence-only education isn't giving kids all the information that they need since it spreads misconceptions, falsehoods and unrealistic choices. Contrary to goal of abstinence-only programs, there's been a rise not only in oral sex but in anal sex as well. If you plan on keeping your vaginal virginity, which is all that has been taught, then you'll resort to alternate forms of sexual expression. Education is important to exploring sexuality, especially at a young age. Teens need good, honest information to make responsible choices.

Bottomline then? Let’s start giving kids quality information both inside the family unit and outside the home at school and in the media – they can handle it, trust us!

Better yet, let's go back behind the scenes and take a brief look at how your first experiences with sexuality affect who we are today. Join us for a trip down memory lane – tell us how you went from birth to babe.

Love,
CAKE

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