Daniel Fishel/The Globe and Mail
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Ontario's new sex-education curriculum sure sounds different than the one in place when I was in school.
In Catholic schools in the Sixties, girls learned about menstruation. We watched a film and we took home a little booklet about the joys of being a woman; I read it from cover to cover. I didn't find any joyful bits. Maybe our school was waiting for our parents to teach us, but my mom and dad – wonderful as they were – never said a word about sex. Everything I learned about sex was from my friend, whom I'll call Mary-Beth.
I kept hoping that when I was 13 my mom would have The Talk with me. I believed that on that magical day she would lovingly tell me everything about sex. Everything, that is, that Mary-Beth had already told me. It wasn't that I didn't believe Mary-Beth – she was a year older than me and a real Little Miss Know-It-All. It was just that I craved this intimacy with my mom. Mary-Beth's mom talked to her. Why wouldn't my mom talk to me?
But 13 came and went, and not a word. Well, maybe one word. In the summer of 1969, as mom drove our old green Chevy to the garment district to buy clothes for me and my six siblings, I sat inspecting my new wallet. Inside the wallet, I found an identification card that I quickly filled in. Name: Nancy Figueroa. Year of birth: 1956. Sex: Sex? Hmm, here was mom's last chance.
"Mom," I hollered from the back seat. "Does sex mean if you are male or female?"
"Yes," was the one and only word that came out of her mouth.
Clearly, it looked like I would have to make do with sex education according to Mary-Beth. It was 1967, and I was in Grade 5, when Mary-Beth started telling me things. The first Mary-Beth talk occurred on a cold Friday night in January after we had gone tobogganing. We were making our way home – Mary-Beth pulling me in the toboggan and just about to turn on to our street – when she said: "Do you know where babies come from?"
"Of course, I know where babies come from!" I said. "They come from the hospital."
Mary-Beth laughed. "You don't know anything, do you?"
She then proceeded to tell me – relishing every detail – just exactly how babies were made. I didn't believe her. It just seemed so, well, yucky, but she persisted. "It's the truth. My mom told me."
How could I have been so clueless? Why hadn't anyone ever told me? And then it hit me: "Oh my gosh! Do you mean my mom and dad did that seven times?"
At this point, Mary-Beth stopped pulling the toboggan, doubled over in the snow and guffawed. Now what had I said?
"You really don't know anything," she shouted. "You don't have a baby every time you have sex. Man, most parents have done it a hundred times."
Hmm, I thought, maybe other parents did, but surely not my parents. Luckily, I knew better than to share this with Little Miss Know-It-All. As the year progressed, she continued to tell me more. I couldn't wait for our little talks, but I hated being so naive.
Often the talks took place as we walked home from our Catholic school. We had lots of routes home, but it was while walking through the playground of the nearby public school that Mary-Beth would often tell me the juiciest bits; the bits that are now part of the new curriculum.
She always began by asking me a question; a question to which she was certain I didn't know the answer. I always tried my darndest; just for once I wanted to be the one who knew something, anything.
"I bet you don't even know what a homosexual is, do you?" Mary-Beth once asked me.
I strained my brain to quickly figure out what the heck a homosexual – I had never heard that word – could possibly be.
"Of course I know what a homosexual is," I lied.
"Okay, what is it then?" Mary-Beth asked.
I looked straight at her, and with all the conviction I could muster, said: "A homosexual is someone who has sex at home."
She laughed and laughed and laughed before telling me what a homosexual really was. I wasn't sure if she was lying to me and I certainly thought my answer was better than hers. Deep down, though, I knew she must be right because her mother said so and my mother never said anything, at least not on this topic.
Even if Mary-Beth was making up half of this stuff, how could I check? I couldn't ask my mom or dad, and my siblings would only laugh at me. There was no such thing as Google in the Sixties, but we did have ancient encyclopedias at home. Once, when I was certain no one was looking, I quickly checked, but I couldn't find any mention of "homosexuals."
The new curriculum looks like it will explain everything, but in the Sixties my friend Mary-Beth was my curriculum.
Nancy Figueroa lives in Toronto.