Personal Narrative: Sexuality In The Classroom

Coming from an Asian household, sexuality was a very hush-hush topic. My mother gave me a few lessons on what certain bodily functions would occur once puberty hit, like my period and the sanitation that comes along with it. My public school did not teach sexual health in our biology classes either. Although my mother gave me a few lessons, I ended up learning about sexuality from dating experiences, older friends, and the media.

While growing up, my mother would pull me aside after dinner to teach me from a book called the “Period Book”. It was a cartoon and diagram based book which explained puberty to young girls. This was helpful but slightly uncomfortable, which I assume was the same for most people my age. When I was sixteen and started …show more content…
I grew up hanging around my coworkers when I was in high school, and most of them were four to five years older than me. Due to those circumstances, I learned a lot about “adult” relationships and birth control from these women. They would tell me about certain sexual acts their boyfriends would do that would be pleasing to them, or even them having one night stands. I was considered the most experienced by my high-school friend group because I was doing these “adult” activities and having one night stands when I was still only 17 to 18 years old. I do regret being sexually promiscuous when I was younger and wish the number of men I have slept with were less. I also do think that there is some good that came from that. It taught me how to be less sensitive with men who do not want to see me anymore and how to choose to be affectionate or not with men. I am better at reading men and their intentions. I do not see myself being blindsided by a man anytime soon since I can guess what he is feeling or gauging from our relationship, no matter how insignificant it …show more content…
The media, mostly print ad’s, were the influencers on how I dressed and what I thought men liked about women. I thought that if I dressed like the Hollister models, I would be considered attractive to boys my age. I do not think models and their body types affected me much because I did not grow up overweight or with an unusual height, whether short or tall. I feel as if I am lucky to have the natural physique I do, since my weight is balanced and I am lean due to my metabolism. I do have many friends who are Hispanic and grew up with the stereotypical wide-hipped physique Hispanic women tend to have. These girls would constantly compare themselves to me and I would be shamed for the body I had since it was similar to the girls we saw on television. This did not bother me since I felt like they were bouncing their frustration off of me since they did not look like the “ideal” woman. Our media is doing a much better job on having women of many different shapes and sizes be on screen and print to show that big can be beautiful