Sex Education Could Be Chalked Up To An Episode Of The Wonder Years

Going back to my bio, I joked that my sex education could be chalked up to an episode of “The Wonder Years.” I attended 1st-12th grade in Eugene, Oregon from 1980 to 1992. It was 1983 when I was first very modestly introduced to what was referred to as “health” education. I remember it being a very brief amount of time where girls were separated from the boys for an hour once a week for maybe a month or so. This is when we slowly began to learn about our bodies and the onset of puberty. I remember it being awkward since I had yet to experience anything being spoken about. We were also explicitly told not to discuss anything we learned with the boys. In hindsight, this may have been the first moment I unconsciously recognized that the topic of sexuality during that time was taboo.

Skipping forward through the years, health class was never much more than learning about physical development through puberty, reproductive organs, and abstinence. H.I.V./AIDS was always the big topic and implicitly suggested throughout the years that anything more than abstinence would result in getting AIDS. This was the 80’s though and no one knew for sure how H.I.V. was or more importantly wasn’t contracted. We weren’t allowed to hug, hold hands,

Sex Ed. was always taught in our high school by the varsity football coach. He was a conservative heteronormative man in his 60’s and it was obvious he felt uncomfortable teaching the class. In our school, it was required for coaches to teach a class and was usually sex ed. or physical ed. Most of the time he would avoid lecture and let us hang out while boys on the football team talked to him about football. I remember at the time feeling lucky that we had him as an instructor because the class was painfully embarrassing and uncomfortable. Of course, now I feel