the center for humane sexual culture

In most minds, Catholic school and sexual shame pretty much go hand-in-hand. As an institution, it evokes images of stern nuns with rulers warning of the sins of premarital sex and masturbation. After nine years of public school, my parents decided to send me to Catholic high school. When you grow up in a large city, parents who want their children to get a decent education but don’t want to dish out too much money often default to Catholic schools. Though I was furious to leave my secular world, the school wasn’t so bad. There weren’t any nuns and I didn’t have to wear a pleated skirt. And beside the daily morning prayer over the loudspeaker,* it was a lot like any other high school.

Well, except for the fact that all freshmen were required to take a course called “Christian Sexuality.” I was absolutely appalled by the notion of this not only because I was 14 and terrified of sex, but also because it seemed contradictory in some way. Oh, and I was also terrified of Christianity. Didn’t Christians completely oppose sex? What in the world were we going to talk about for an entire semester?

My ex-hippie teacher had an amazingly ironic name (rhymes with snow and starts with an H) and you could really tell that she struggled with this class. She wanted to make it a comprehensive sexuality class, but the confines of the Diocese made the curriculum incredibly confusing. She showed us how to put a condom on a banana, we talked about how it was okay to be gay and we even discussed transgender issues. But for every condom/banana and fill-in the blank contraceptive worksheet, she’d insist “DON’T HAVE SEX UNTIL YOU’RE MARRIED!!” and then start discussing spermicidal foam.

You could see her heart breaking when she announced that she would be showing an informational film on the “dangers of abortions.” We wide-eyed freshmen sat traumatized as the “vacuum” sucked a “poor little baby” out of a screaming women. There was no post-film discussion or Q&A session and we didn’t talk about the film for the rest of the semester. She did, however, pass out pregnancy crisis center business cards.

Honestly, I do respect Ms. uh, Snow for her efforts to give us a comprehensive education in sexuality. She did what she could and in actuality, it was a lot better than what most public schools offer. The most depressing thing was how little impact any of it made on my classmates. Sexual shame ran rampant in my high school as I suppose it does as most schools. The word “fag” was hurled frequently and girls constantly defaced the bathroom walls, accusing each other of performing certain sexual acts on certain football players.

I wonder if it would have been any different if Ms. Snow had free rein of the class. Imagine if we could have actually discussed transgendered issues rather than just being told that it was “normal” and moving on to the next topic. Would it have made a difference in the bullying and the shaming if the point of that class was to discuss sexuality with freshmen rather than half-heartedly mentioning it?

A couple of years ago, I was on a beach in Santa Cruz and for whatever reason, I uttered the words “Christian Sexuality.” A guy turned around and asked me what high school I went to. Turns out, we were a couple of grades apart and both had “Ms. Snow” for that class. We agreed that the condom on the banana demonstration had left a lasting impression on us. And from talking to my former classmates over the years, it is something they too will always remember.

It is impossible to imagine how much that one little demonstration has probably prevented.

*Side note: I initially had thought it was mandatory to cross yourself after the prayer, even if you weren’t Catholic, and I kept doing it in the wrong order until I got called on it.