Comprehensive sex education is lacking, but some of the things people are taught are simply bonkers. For example, the stimga around HIV is still rampant. And the idea that women get the periods during full moons is laughable. Still, these things are taught, despite their harmful lack of truth. Sex is a part of life, and people have the right to know how it works.
wollyhammock asked, People who received no or terrible sex education: what was the most wildly inaccurate thing you were taught or told about sex and sexual health?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
Religion keeping people in the dark about sex? Groundbreaking.
Giphy
I received absolutely no sex education. I was raised a religious fundamentalist, married at 19 to a girl that was as ignorant as I was and lost our virginity on our wedding night. Married for 13 years. I learned what and where a clitoris was from my 2nd sexual partner at the age of 32.
This is so sad.
In addition to the usual (condoms aren't effective, sex before marriages gives you cancer, zero information about discharge or where clitoris is located) I was taught that women don't feel sexual arousal. At all. Those who think they do are just confused. Women have sex to please men and make babies, no other reason.
I still wonder if the woman who taught me this was just asexual and didn't know it, and she assumed this was the norm.
It really depends on the penis.
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I always thought you were supposed to be really gentle with the penis. So my first time giving a hand job I had the lightest grip possible so I wouldn't hurt him. When he showed me just how I was shocked lol.
I also thought your period was supposed to be just a dot of blood, hence the name "period." Had a rude awakening with that one.
This is a lot to, erm... wow.
I taught that a woman releases a special chemical in her brain during/right after sex that makes her attached to the man for the rest of her life, because he made that happen. Only women tho, and only your first.
My parents were so hellbent on this that me and my mom often argued about it... she was adamant that I could barely know the guy, yet this would happen and it would ruin my life, she was that convinced (as a teen, they didn't like my boyfriend and used this to say I won't know who he will grow up into, in highschool you've known him only a few years, this will forever taint your life when you eventually get married etc.... very strong belief they hold). Many other misconceptions as well, but that's the craziest. Others include:
*Tampons cause infertility because the ovaries cannot 'air out'
*Having cold feet outside leads to infertility by 'freeze damage' to the ovaries
*Sex is a donation to a man, not at all something to share as it can never truly be pleasurable for the woman. However, you're in luck because women happen to release a forever-bonding chemical when she loses her virginity so you won't mind "doing what is needed to him when do you have to".
*Women/girls do not discharge. It's either dry, or period time.
No such thing huh...
My mum told me there was no such thing as ovulation when I was 9. To this day I haven't had the courage to ask her how she thinks I got here!
The worst thing to teach about sex is that it's somehow bad.
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Basically sex = your life is ruined and there's nothing you can do about it then.
Little bit inaccurate.
This sort of HIV stigma still exists, and it's dangerous.
That you can get pregnant from hugging and that you can get AIDS from kissing. It was 1999 when it had been proven that HIV was not spread through casual contact.
"Watching the animals" are probably not the best example of how to teach sex.
My sex ed was cassette tapes of an old man basically just saying don't have sex before marriage, but one of the things he said was "I grew up on a farm, and I learned all I needed to know about sex by watching the animals."
"Abstinence only" is destructive and unscientific.
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My middle school teacher told the class that condoms were not effective at all for protecting against STDs and only worked 50% in stoping pregnancies, and that anyone who told you otherwise was a diseased pervert trying to trick you into sex. Abstinence teaching, ladies and gentlemen.
This can't possibly be true.
"If you both keep your virginity until your wedding night, you will have an amazing sex life forever."
False.
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