Monday morning I start off with two cups of coffee while I flip through my note cards. As soon as I finish, I check the clock on my phone.
I still have time for one more cup before I have to leave for my exam.
I laugh as I pour another cup, black, and think wistfully of the days when my mom would shake her head in disdain when I ordered a small with extra cream and sugar at Dunkin’ Donuts.
It’s going to be quite a shock heading home.
Returning from the kitchen, I set my mug back down alongside my notes as four boys I know vaguely walk into the room, arguing about something.
So much for studying. I pile up my note cards. It’s fine; I’m more than prepared for this thing already.
“So you just didn’t sleep with her?” The boys sit down at the other end of the table.
“Yeah, dude, I don’t want that getting on me, all that blood and shit.”
“I guess but—”
“Plus there’s an egg, right? What if it came out, like, while we were having sex?”
I sip my coffee and turn to face them directly. This is better than anything that’s been on TV recently.
“Dude, she’s not like...a chicken.”
“Yeah, but I mean, that’s pretty much what she’s doing, right? Laying an egg? Did you ever think about that?”
I almost choke on my coffee. I cannot emphasize enough that these are adult men, who attend one of the best universities in the United States of America, and they think human women lay eggs.
His friends seem to consider this for a moment.
“I never thought about it that way,” one of them says.
“Periods are so weird,” another one adds.
“I’ve just always wondered how they can pee, what with the tampons up in there and whatnot.”
“Dude, you are so stupid—it’s a different place from where the pee comes out.”
Okay, this has gone on long enough.
“Hey, um, excuse me.” I raise my hand slightly. “I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m Cassie—I’m a pledge here.”
They nod.
“Title IX,” one of them says. It doesn’t even seem like he’s trying to insult me, just that his only frame of reference is my pledge name.
“Yeah, right, whatever. So, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop or anything, but I, uh, think I may be able to shed some light on the...debate you’re having.”
“Really?”
No effing duh. I am a postpubescent woman, and believe it or not, I know more about this than you.
I rub my eyes. God, where do I start? “So it’s like...when a woman has her period...no, let’s start with basic anatomy. Have you guys ever seen a diagram of—”
My phone goes off. A calendar alert: LEAVE FOR FINAL NOW. DO IT. IF YOU ARE STILL ASLEEP, I AM TIME TRAVELING TO PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE.
I like to get creative with my event names.
“Shit, you know what? I’ll explain later. I have to go to a final. Will you all be around later today?”
They nod.
“Okay, meet me in the lounge at, like, three. I’ll teach you everything you need to know. But just don’t...share these thoughts with anyone until I get back.”
I grab my bag and rush out.
Oh my God, they are Warren students. How do they know so little?
The exam goes fine, as expected. I finish with an hour left.
They aren’t kidding when they say the hardest part of going to an elite university is getting in.
As I step outside to sunshine and freedom, my phone buzzes.
I have multiple texts from Ben Worthington.
Ben Worthington? If he’s in my contacts it’s because I’ve put him there, but I can’t place the name, although it does sound vaguely familiar.
Oh my God, it’s Bambi.
I open the messages.
B: Hey... I heard you were going to talk about lady stuff
Then, three minutes later...
B: And I’ve kind of never been with a girl before
Then, ten minutes after that...
B: So I was wondering if I could come
B: And if you would, you know, talk about the basics a little
And then a minute after that...
B: BUT OMG DON’T TELL ANYONE I’M A VIRGIN!! ESP IN THE HOUSE
This is out of hand. I shove my phone back into my messenger bag. Bambi wasn’t even in the kitchen this morning. How many people have heard about this?
I’m not about to teach sex ed in a frat house.
Except...
What if I teach a formal sex ed program in a frat house? Is that gimmicky enough for you, Macey?
I pull my phone back out and click on my email.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Who? Who-ha
Greetings fellow pledge bitches and respected actives,
Ever wondered what the heck a period is?
G spot harder to find than a parking spot near main quad?
Baffled by ovulation?
Recently discovered that women can orgasm and wanting to make that happen?
Do you ever encounter women in your life, or think, hey, maybe I should know something about the health and body of half the human population?
You are in luck!
Due to a number of requests I will be teaching sex ed in the lounge this afternoon @ 3 (but let’s be real—I’ll be late and it will be 3:15)
See you there
Xoxo,
Cassie, aka Title IX
PS: There may also be doughnuts if I have time to pick them up.
* * *
After the final, I head over to the building Professor Price works in and find an assistant with thick-rimmed glasses and a pencil skirt, which she probably wears to distinguish her from the students, who are about her age but all seem to be wearing sweatpants.
I tell her I work for Price and I’m teaching sex ed at DTC this afternoon (both true separately, although I am massaging the truth a bit by saying them in that order).
Her eyes grow huge at the sound of Price’s name, and she scrambles away, saying she has just what I need.
She hooks me up with some poster-size anatomical diagrams and some plastic models.
“Wait, take these, too.” She adds a giant box of individually wrapped condoms to the pile in my arms.
“It’s great you’re doing this. They really need it,” she says.
I nod and thank her, taking the supplies.
She waves as I close the door behind me with my hip. I smile faintly, fulfilling my role as patron saint of educated frat boys.
I head to the doughnut store and then back to the house, garnering more than a few stares with my giant vagina posters.
The common room is already pretty full when I open the door.
I make my way toward the front of the room, trying not to drop the plastic vulva as I weave between frat boys.
The couches are full, and a lot of the floor space has been taken up, too. A few guys loiter in the far doorways, like they’re accidentally here.
Some look timid, like Bambi, who’s sitting on the arm of a couch, avoiding eye contact with me.
Some have a “sue me” kind of look, secure enough to be here and not feel bad.
But the worst are the ones acting like they came here as a joke. They need the info but are terrified anyone thinks they don’t, at eighteen or nineteen, know everything there is to know about sex.
“Will you be stripping, Cassie?” one of them asks.
I ignore them and set down my teaching materials.
“Do you need volunteers to demonstrate?” someone yells, and a bunch of them laugh together.
I turn around and just stare at them. Most of the troublemakers are sitting on the floor in front of the couches. And most of them are in my pledge class, although Sebastian is there, too. Fabulous. He’s not making comments, but he has a smirk on his spoiled little face.
This could go south fast.
I scan the room. “I’ll be right back.”
I practically run upstairs and start knocking vigorously on Duncan’s door.
After a minute he answers, shirtless and in basketball shorts. The room is dark, and there’s still sleep in his eyes.
“Hey, Cass.” He yawns. “’Sup?”
“Are you busy?” I ask, although the answer is obvious.
He scrubs his hand over his face. “Nah, I, uh, got back from practice and was taking a nap.”
“I need your help with something.” I cringe, feeling bad at taking away some of his precious time to sleep. He looks so tired, but I really do need him.
“No problem. Just give me a second.” He closes the door and after a minute reemerges, this time wearing a black T-shirt and looking slightly—though only slightly—more awake.
We make it downstairs to find that the little assholes have opened the box of condoms and helped themselves already. I tell myself at least they’re using them.
“Oh, it looks like she already has a volunteer,” someone says.
I want to flip him off, but that would set a bad tone.
I clear my throat. “All right.”
My voice can barely be heard above the rowdiness.
“All right,” I yell. The noise in the room turns to a murmur. “Let’s begin.”
“Can’t wait to finish!” a member of the peanut gallery contributes.
I side-eye them and then turn back to the rest of the room.
“Okay, here’s the deal. Duncan is my bouncer.” I gesture toward him, and he crosses his large arms in front of his chest. He makes what I guess is supposed to be an intimidating face, but he still looks more like a teddy than a grizzly. Doesn’t matter. His size does the trick.
“If you make a comment or a joke that makes people—including me—uncomfortable, he kicks you out.”
I smile mechanically. They all shut up, and some even squirm. God, this feels good.
“Okay, we’re gonna start with a little survey.” I look challengingly around the room. “So who thinks they know about sex?”
Most of them raise their hands. Bambi’s eyes dart side to side before he raises his. There are a few snickers, but nothing that requires Duncan’s assistance.
I nod. “Who learned about sex at school?”
About half the hands go up this time.
Okay...
“Who learned about sex from porn?”
Three hands go up. People shift in their seats to look at who responded. Those faces turn red. Hmm...
“Everyone close your eyes.” They do. “Who learned about sex from porn?”
There is a slight rustle in the room as practically every hand goes up.
Okay, that’s more like what I expected.
“’Kay, hands down. All right, so the bad news is most porn is more reflective of fantasy than reality. And even worse, it’s reflective of stereotypical fantasy, like male dominance of innocent and naive women, that really doesn’t reflect the reality of sex. And it leads to a skewed view of what safe, consensual sex is like.
“It rarely to never caters to the desires of women, and the bodies featured in it are almost impossible to achieve without surgery. And that goes for the men as well as the women.
“But the good news is, real sex doesn’t require impossible bodies or crazy scenarios to be fantastic. And women actually get to enjoy it, not just show off their less-than-great acting skills.
“The problem is, since most of us get our education more from people who are paid to be over the top than from objectively accurate places, sometimes great and, even more importantly, healthy sex is way too rare.”
I wait a moment to let that sink in.
“Okay, so let’s start with some simple anatomy.”
I go through the basics. Explaining that period blood is just blood, and that women do not “lay eggs.” I explain how women pee, and the basics of tampons and pads.
At one point a large football player pulls a small pad of paper from his backpack and starts to take notes. I have to keep from laughing.
I explain affirmative consent and the Kinsey scale, the theory that sexual orientation is really a spectrum. As a consequence, I end up answering a lot of genuine, if not a little too concerned, questions about if this means everyone is a little bit gay.
I explain ovulation, and then play a review quiz-show-style game called “Can she get pregnant if...?”
I read off note cards. “She’s on her period?”
“Yes!” someone on the farthest couch yells.
“Correct.” I throw a condom in his general direction.
“If she’s on the pill?”
“Yes!”
I throw another one, and people lunge to get it.
I want to laugh. Like, dude, it’s a condom. These idiots will get competitive about anything. “If taken correctly, the pill is ninety-nine percent effective, but given the way women usually take it, that drops to ninety-one percent. So use one of these.”
I flip the cards. “If you pull out?”
“Precum!” someone yells.
“I was just looking for a simple yes.” I use my best game show host voice. “But that is correct.”
When the game is over I pass around the box. “If you didn’t answer those questions correctly, you need these even more.”
Then I take questions from them.
“What’s your favorite position?” the kid sitting next to Sebastian asks. He’s in my pledge class but hasn’t said a word to me this whole semester.
I look at Duncan and point. The kid is probably average size, but Duncan throws him over his shoulder like a rag doll and carries him out with ease. Sebastian follows them out, huffing and puffing.
The football player with the notepad raises his hand. “What about the tube things?”
“Fallopian tubes?”
He nods.
“Honestly you really don’t need to worry about them. I know that most sex ed programs talk about them, even if they don’t talk about much else, but I assure you, I’m a girl and I don’t really ever need to think about them. So if you’re not becoming a doctor, you probably don’t need to, either. Next?”
“How can I have sex with a virgin and not hurt her?”
“She really shouldn’t bleed too much or be in severe pain. But also don’t take it personally if the first time’s not great for her, because it’s a little nerve-racking and uncomfortable.” I say this with confidence, trusting all I have read, although I wouldn’t know personally.
I hand out more condoms, and links to websites like the Centers for Disease Control and Planned Parenthood.
And I walk away kind of proud, with surprisingly little material for my report, but feeling like I may have just taught some people some really important things.
And I’m not sure if I should be happy about that or not.