Meeting Persephone

In the case of the chicken and the egg, I know not which came first. In the case of contraceptives in our public schools and pre-adolescent sex, I'm certain I know which came first. Now that I live in a district that is collecting the incentive money for "abstinence only sex education" I can say in all honesty that I'd rather my daughter and her classmates had access to condoms in the school nurse's office than abstinence only sex education. I seldom talk out of my ass or stand on unfounded principle for no reason and so I shall explain where this position comes from.

When I moved to a little town in Nevada (Winnemucca if you're wondering - 5 billion people have never been there as it states on the billboards heading into the town) I found very little for the juvenile portion of the population to participate in. We had one two screen movie theater and the "main strip" for driving cars up and back on Friday and Saturday nights. That was it. There were casinos galore as well as the redlight district tucked away and out of sight from the general population for the adults but nothing for kids to really do to keep themselves occupied. What do bored children tend to do? Many of them drink and even more begin having sex at a young age. I was stuck in a tiny town with few options. I did have a few friends with cars and we'd sometimes leave the small town and head out into the desert to swim in the "hot pots" but if we didn't do that the other options were pathetic.

In my home economics class I shared a table with a 14 year old freshman. We'd been in class for several weeks when she made a comment about her daughter. I couldn't believe that someone so young had a daughter at all and then, come to find out, her daughter was 2 years old. I'd known girls in junior high who'd claimed to have miscarried but I'd never known anyone until moving to Nevada who'd actually given birth at such a young age. She was 11 when her daughter was conceived and 12 when she was born. She wore a small red tank top to school one day and was leaning back in her chair stretching her aching back and trying to wake herself up after a long night of staying up with her sick child. All I was able to focus on as her shirt crept up a little bit was the adolescent tummy ravaged by the stretch marks so wide and deep you could have hidden a matchbox car in any of them. There was no doubt that this girl had gone through something she should never have had to endure at such a young age. Her body bore the marks of pregnancy and her future was dictated from that point on by her child instead of her own dreams. Having been raised Mormon, her parents certainly were not going to permit her to have an abortion and so she gave birth and kept her baby. A condom may have prevented this.

In this same school I had a guidance counselor. He was a wonderfully kind man. He had a daughter 2 years older than myself who graduated the first summer I was in the school. She went onto college and found herself a boyfriend. The following summer she and her boyfriend were arrested for murder. It seems she had gotten pregnant, given birth, then the two of them took their new infant up onto a hill, bashed its head in with a rock, and buried the baby. She was an adult and living in the state of Nevada where abortions were actually legal, at this time, through the entire pregnancy.

After I left Winnemucca, Nevada I stayed in touch with only one person. She informed me that shortly after I moved away she learned of a new trend going on in the junior high school. Kids had realized that they wouldn't get pregnant if they engaged in anal sex instead of vaginal and so began a new problem - girls with little understanding were now being taken to the emergency room with torn rectums from over-eager thrusting courtesy of their adolescent partners.

And I also watch the change that has occurred since our district has changed from practical sex education to "abstinence only sex ed". When those who'd had practical sex education were still in the high school, there might have been one pregnancy per year in the entire high school. Once those kids cycled out through graduation and the school is now home to nothing but these kids who've had only "abstinence only sex ed" there are no less than 3 girls pregnant (often a couple in each grade 9-12) at any given time and several boys who've impregnated 1-5 girls ANY GIVEN YEAR! There are no condoms in the schools. They do not even talk about condoms. They do not talk about sexually transmitted diseases. They do not learn about pregnancy. They do learn about wet dreams but never masturbation. They are having morality dictated to them but it's not really sticking.

In an ideal world things like those I've just told would never happen. We would all be able to talk to our children and, more importantly, they would talk to us. We wouldn't foster a society that prizes money over everything else and that encourages two-income households to acquire all of those things that the television says we need. There would be a parent at home to be aware of everything their children are up to (who really hires a baby-sitter for their 14+ year olds?) and would care enough to want to guide them in the "right" direction. But, despite those who tout some superior morality because of some religious affiliation or whatever, children are having sex. Ideally they would wait to have sex until they are physically and emotionally mature enough to take it on and they would have the awareness and education to protect themselves. Unfortunately that all too often is not the case.

This isn't about pointing fingers or making pointless accusations of parents/authorities shrugging off responsibility. Dictating by some ridiculous idea of "principle" and "morality" doesn't handle the practical issues that really are issues. The reality is that kids (younger and younger all of the time) are having sex (not all of them but how many does it take?). They do live in a different time and a different world than I did (I certainly never left the house with $1,000.00 worth of electronics on my person). We have to be aware, we have to talk, but we also have to protect and if that protection means condoms being made available so 11 year old girls don't have to confront the painful realities of abortion or childbirth/rearing/adoption then so be it - "If you're going to play you have to pay" is moronic and the time for that mentality has passed. And yes, ideally all parents would give a shit about what their kids are up to. Unfortunately they don't all care. We don't require a license to have children or a test to make sure you're prepared to be a parent. Should the children be penalized for their parents' ineptitude or lack of caring (if they don't care)? No, they should be informed and protected. Of course those screaming against the immorality of giving condoms to adolescents are also screaming for "less government" and "less taxes" when it takes both of those things for real education to take place. Protect our children - even if it means we can only protect them from their own bad choices. "Fault" is truly irrelevent. Anything else is sticking your head in the sand.

The Trash Heap has spoken.