Written by Rowan Pelling for The Telegraph. Originally published on September 3rd, 2013.
“My sex education at school was (quite literally) sketchy: our biology teacher drew fast and furious anatomical diagrams on a blackboard, as she barked us through the mechanics of sex with all the warmth of a pathologist conducting a particularly unsavoury autopsy. Condoms were recommended over the Pill, but more as a prophylactic against the shame of pregnancy than the more significant risk of chlamydia. Same-sex relationships weren’t mentioned, presumably because, like Queen Victoria, my then headmistress – a former missionary – didn’t believe in them.
How unlike the local academy today. According to a friend’s teenage daughter, pupils there were recently given a sexuality and prejudice workshop by a group of visiting educators, in which they were asked to identify which members of the party were gay. My friend’s child was worried that it was a trick question, and therefore identified the woman with a buzz cut and butch boots as straight, incorrectly.”
Read the rest of the article here.
