What I learned from boys my age is that sex is something a man is supposed to achieve with a woman—a gateway he must pass through in order to travel onwards to manhood. If you weren’t having sex or at least talking about it, that probably meant you were gay. Being gay was something I was told to fear by my classmates. And sexual orientation was never mentioned in health class.


Freshman year of high school, I started receiving e-mails calling me a “faggot.” Maybe if we had talked about sexual orientation in class, we all would have known what being gay meant and wouldn’t have had to fear it. But instead, “gay” or “faggot” stood for a weakness of character and masculinity, an inability to sit in the locker room and tell everyone that your backpack was crammed full of condoms for the upcoming weekend.

Now that I’m at college, I’m just happy everyone understands what being gay and straight mean and what being masculine and feminine actually pertain to. They don’t need to constantly allude to the “shitload of condoms” stuffed in their backpacks.

Want to read more stories from Sex, Etc. teen editors about talking to parents about sex and what they wish they'd learned in sex ed? Check out Karen, Chelsea, and Joshua's stories.