Used Chewing Gum
Middle School health class, 1996. I was more interested in lunch breaks with my friends than I was learning that drugs are addictive and cigarettes give you cancer, but I was a good student in all of my classes. When it was time for sex ed I thought we were going to talk about periods, see a video about childbirth, and maybe put condoms on phallic fruit or vegetables. That's what I saw in movies and television shows, so that is what I expected, along with some likely classroom giggles at words like erection or intercourse. What I got instead was re-traumatization that affected me well into my adult life. My health teacher was an older, bitter, grouch. She was a strict, old-school teacher who liked to yell as a first resort for any behaviors she disapproved of. I remember nobody liking her much. She hadn't told us what our new unit was going to be when she stood in front of the class and dramatically opened a pack of gum. Wonderful, glorious, forbidden gum, the thing that yo...