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Jan. 8th, 2019 05:38 amhaha i'm trying to remember what kind of sex ed i had in school (early 2000's). would be fascinating to ask fellow russian ppl about theirs.
i think it wasn't so much 'abstinence' as 'nothing'?? iirc, they were too ashamed to actually talk to us about sex, but there were a couple of lectures where they separated us girls from the boys and told us to not be afraid of puberty / menstruation and gave out free tampons (which i still bless them for b/c i wouldn't have dared to actually buy myself some and thus would've been stuck with pads which are much less comfortable for me; but there were too many myths about actually sticking smth 'down there' for me to dare and try tampons without encouragment). i think they also said some pretty gross stuff about how we needed to wash more often 'those days' and that our bodies' smell was more noticeable, for example to boys?? noticeable and disgusting, was the vibe. like, that actually did mildly exacerbate my body issues afterwards yay.
anyway, other than these tentative attempts, my parents also bought me a couple of popular translated sex-ed books (mostly abt the physical stuff, the birds and the bees, but the tone was still striking in its complete lack of judgement!! a fucking breath of fresh air tbh) and called it a day.
also b/c i was very young (younger than kids in my grade) and poorly socialised during my school years i fell through absolutely any and all social nets that were supposed to give me a crash course into sexuality; i never talked to fellow kids, almost never even watched popular movies to get the discourse from. i read almost exclusively classics (and thanks to my lit teacher for implying that Dunya's attitude of 'rape is worse than death' in 'Crime and Punishment' is admirable!! jfc still having nightmares about that that one). and also some trashy magazines of my mom's that taught me to be afraid of rape in a neurotic way; yeah in retrospect that wasn't appropriate for my age.
so my late teens (up to 20) have been, in order, a rude awakening to and repulsion from the theme of sexuality in general; then finding fandom and getting discourse and education here, bless you. to this day, when i don't skip explicit scenes in fics that aren't *utterly brilliantly* written, as would be my first inclination, i do it because i *need* a source of sex positivity in my life (and being ace in our culture tends to skew me the other way automatically) and there just isn't any other comparable one.
i think it wasn't so much 'abstinence' as 'nothing'?? iirc, they were too ashamed to actually talk to us about sex, but there were a couple of lectures where they separated us girls from the boys and told us to not be afraid of puberty / menstruation and gave out free tampons (which i still bless them for b/c i wouldn't have dared to actually buy myself some and thus would've been stuck with pads which are much less comfortable for me; but there were too many myths about actually sticking smth 'down there' for me to dare and try tampons without encouragment). i think they also said some pretty gross stuff about how we needed to wash more often 'those days' and that our bodies' smell was more noticeable, for example to boys?? noticeable and disgusting, was the vibe. like, that actually did mildly exacerbate my body issues afterwards yay.
anyway, other than these tentative attempts, my parents also bought me a couple of popular translated sex-ed books (mostly abt the physical stuff, the birds and the bees, but the tone was still striking in its complete lack of judgement!! a fucking breath of fresh air tbh) and called it a day.
also b/c i was very young (younger than kids in my grade) and poorly socialised during my school years i fell through absolutely any and all social nets that were supposed to give me a crash course into sexuality; i never talked to fellow kids, almost never even watched popular movies to get the discourse from. i read almost exclusively classics (and thanks to my lit teacher for implying that Dunya's attitude of 'rape is worse than death' in 'Crime and Punishment' is admirable!! jfc still having nightmares about that that one). and also some trashy magazines of my mom's that taught me to be afraid of rape in a neurotic way; yeah in retrospect that wasn't appropriate for my age.
so my late teens (up to 20) have been, in order, a rude awakening to and repulsion from the theme of sexuality in general; then finding fandom and getting discourse and education here, bless you. to this day, when i don't skip explicit scenes in fics that aren't *utterly brilliantly* written, as would be my first inclination, i do it because i *need* a source of sex positivity in my life (and being ace in our culture tends to skew me the other way automatically) and there just isn't any other comparable one.
