It’s so sad what parents and schools do to kids by withholding basic health info to keep them from being “promiscuous.” I knew an older woman who told me when she got her first period that she didn’t know what was happening and she was terrified. She didn’t want to tell her parents, because they just didn’t talk about body stuff, so she waded waist deep in a cold stream to try and stop the bleeding.
Fun fact, this is precisely why the first suicide hotline was implemented in the US.
A young girl killed herself because she got her first period and thought she had gotten an STD. She had no one to talk to and took her own life.
It’s story like this that make me viscerally angry at people who preach abstinence only sex education. You can’t just tell young people to ignore the changes happening to their bodies, it only leads to confusion, mistakes, and fear.
Actually, a small correction: the suicide hotline connected to the story is from the UK, not the USA.
It was actually one of the first crisis hotlines not just in the UK, but also in the world. It was founded in 1953 and the organization’s name is the Samaritans. It was also founded by a priest!
You can look this info up on Wikipedia.
I’ve met that kind of priest. Good folks, they understand that their job is mostly just to help people and that the religious part is window dressing to that.
