A few weeks ago, a Kansas school district received complaints after its sex education curriculum included a poster that asked the question “How do people express their sexual feelings?”
The answers on the poster included talking, sexual intercourse and, among many others, anal sex. When kids told their parents they learned about anal sex, all hell broke loose.
We’re not talking about a full length, pornographic visual film on anal sex. We’re talking seven letters written in black ink.
Anal sex.
Two words, which few dare to utter, even though more than 30 percent of heterosexual couples have reported having anal sex, according to a 2012 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Yes, you read that right — heterosexual couples willingly take part in anal sex. Turns out that the rectum is in such a close proximity to the vaginal muscles that they can be stimulated, sometimes even to the point of an orgasm.
Sodomy laws were deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2003, but Louisiana’s rules are still on the books. As recently as this summer, sheriff’s deputies arrested men in Baton Rouge under these outdated laws.
Here we are more than 10 years later, and we still refuse to talk about a sexual act.
On the rare day that I am able to get a University student to talk to me about anal sex, the conversation has varied from homophobia to fear from both sexes.
I’m going to put all of your minds at ease right now. Having anal sex does not make you gay. Loving someone of the same sex does that.
Some of the fear of anal sex stems from the idea that it is dirty, which is an understandable conclusion. However, there are many ways to cleanse the anus, just like you would clean any other body part. The nightmares of fecal matter are simply that — nightmares.
And for everyone who’s scared because it could hurt, please remember that if you learn how to properly and safely engage in sexual activities, sex should not hurt. In fact, it’s often pleasurable, which is the whole reason people have sex.
So why do we still fear it? Because we aren’t learning how to properly have anal sex.
The middle school students in Kansas whose parents are outraged that they are learning about anal sex will likely be propositioned at some point in their lives. As of right now, many of them are not equipped with the appropriate information on how to have safe anal sex.
During the AIDS epidemic, opponents of premarital sex used fear as a way to promote abstinence-only education. But people continued to have sex and sometimes became infected with the disease.
Studies have found many young adults consider anal sex, among other forms of non-vaginal sex, as practicing abstinence. This undermines the premise of abstaining to keep disease free.
The lack of information is directly correlated to reports of painful anal experiences and infection or disease.
Students have a right to an inclusive sex education program, and parents and educators have the responsibility to give it to them.
Teach your children to have great sex, because as radical as it might sound, great sex is safe sex.
Jana King is a 19-year-old communication studies sophomore from Ponchatoula, La.