Tuesday Sex Talk

On Tuesday I got to accompany two of the volunteers from elsewhere in Lima to a Catholic high school to give a sex ed talk! It was really awesome. We started off walking there but got lost quickly. My snow-white pants got grimy from the pollution and dirt on the sidewalks... why on earth did I bring white pants to Lima? Eventually we took a taxi to the colegio (high school) and the lady we met outside was pissed at how late we were. She said the kids had been waiting, she didn't care that we got lost, and she was upset that we didn't have two girls and two boys to give the presentation because it was a mixed-gender class. I said, "Well... I can help..." but I had really hoped to be an observer for this first class presentation. Enrique's loud phone went off right as he was about to shake her hand, and she did not get less pissed. That lady sure gave us an awkward and tense tone to start with, but Enrique and Juan Pedro had been doing this volunteering for 7 years so they got everything under control. This is Enrique and me on the walk to the high school.

I saw this advertisement in the taxi  on the way to the school. It says, "Did you dream of having skin like this?" Yeah, it's an ad about some kind of skin cream, but this is so ridiculously racist. There is not one single person in Peru who is that white AND she's photoshopped to be whiter and smoother than humanly possible. All of the advertisements here have white people in them, whereas the vast majority of Peruvians are brown. Lima has a greater percentage of white people than the rest of the country, but most of these people are mixed. Even if they weren't mixed, and even if there were a bunch of white people here, there is absolutely no diversity in advertising. It's awful. Much worse than in the US and even worse than in Japan (where at least some of the ads have Asians and at least some of the real Asians are pretty white-looking).

Juan Pedro teaching the kidlets about the differences between sex and gender. I kept quiet for the first half-hour or so of the lecture for a number of reasons: I didn't know their lesson plan, I didn't know all of the vocabulary in Spanish, and I didn't know how much I was allowed to say to these teens. I was also kind of nervous. But I understood everything Juan Pedro and Enrique were saying, and I was dying to join in. There were a lot of girls in the class and I so badly wanted to be a female role model the way the two guys were being. They were talking about masturbation and how it's important to know your own body before you try to know someone else's, and I was JUST DYING to say something to encourage the girls that they can be doing the same thing without feeling embarrassed about it. But again, I didn't know what I was allowed to say and I wasn't sure how to word it in Spanish. Although I was quiet for awhile, I still made some gestures...At one point, a girl asked, "How do two women have sex?" and I stuck out my tongue and held up my fingers. ;) Enrique and Juan Pedro saw me, laughed, and explained that women can use artificial penises, fingers, tongues, and creativity.

The boy in the front of the class (see above picture) raised his hand and said, "Gay people... are they born that way or do they become that way?" and everyone in the class got chatty and most shouted, "They become that way!" Juan Pedro said, "Hang on, we'll have time to talk about that later." When that time finally came, their answers were not quite as clear as what I could do, so I pulled Juan Pedro over and told him I could take these questions. So I got up in front of the class, introduced myself, and told them that when I was their age, I didn't know many or any LGBT people. I explained that this is because a lot of people in high school are uncomfortable with their sexuality or do not feel comfortable being open about it to others, and this often changes after high school. I told them that there are various studies indicating that there are biological factors to sexual orientation, but the truth is that no one knows the answer. The only important thing is that it doesn't matter what any kind of cause there might be, just that it is not a choice and that we treat gays and everyone else like human beings.

It was amazing to be able to say all of this in Spanish and have a whole room of teens paying me complete attention. I had to make a lot of generalizations but I did give some examples. I told them that I know a male student who was born with a female body and feels much more comfortable in his gender now that he doesn't have to pretend to be a woman. I told them that trans people are not dressing in the other sex's clothes just for fun; it is because of a strong feeling that their body does not match up with their personality. I explained that there is basically too much sexual diversity to describe all of it in this lecture. The most important thing is that every person and every body is different and we cannot discriminate or create stigma.

The one thing I really wanted to say but didn't is that I am bisexual. I wasn't sure if they had any good impressions of people from the US before me, or good impressions of women with short hair before me. I also didn't want to tell a classroom and its teacher about my personal romantic experiences, because that would probably come up as a question.

Signs in the classroom: "I love my Peru."

 "We are the dawn of each new day of hope and happiness!" I feel like I'm back in Japan. :) 

Enrique and Juan Pedro organized the kids into groups: The Penises, the Vaginas, The Epididymuses, and the Clitorises. :) Each group was assigned a type of birth control (hormonal, barrier, natural, etc) and had to write or draw on a poster as many methods within that category that they could think of. Then we all went over their answers and told them more about each kind of contraceptive and how well it works.

We were going to do an exercise called "Life Plan" where the students all have to think about what they want to be doing in ten years, but we didn't have much time. As nice as it would be to have kids thinking about the future and whether they want babies to be a part of their lives when they're 24-27, I think the info we gave them about contraception and sexual diversity will be more valuable.

We spent two hours talking to the kids until 2:30 when their school let out. Two of the male students were particularly curious about condoms and kept asking me and Enrique more questions about them, and if could they have any for free. I felt bad that we weren't allowed to show the class a demonstration of how to put a condom on a banana or dildo, but we did get to describe the steps of putting one on and how to avoid breaking a condom (no teeth or scissors, for instance). It really takes more than 2 hours to teach kids everything they need to know to have emotionally and physically healthy sex, especially the decision-making process of when and how they want to start having sex, and the discussion process with a partner, especially a first partner. SO MUCH TO TEACH.

Enrique and Juan Pedro left to go to their homes elsewhere in Lima (up to 40 minutes away) because they are volunteers and university students, not Inppares workers. I went back to Inppares and the rest of the day I spent basking in how awesome that sex ed talk made me feel about the future. I feel like I could spend every day of my life teaching rowdy children and teens how to think of their bodies in a positive way, accept others, and make healthy decisions about sex and relationships. Photos in the mini-bus on the way back from the school.