say what?

On Tuesday, I gave an HIV/AIDS lecture to some of the 10th grade students. My part was only about 20 minutes but I collaborated with the 11th graders on the lecture to create a 3 hour workshop. Not as bad as it sounds. There's tons to talk about with HIV/AIDS and the time flew.

Like most parents in the states, parents here do not want to talk to their kids about sexuality, HIV, or even puberty. Most kids learn about sex from their friends or media. Reminds me of when I was about 14 and I was given "the talk", which consisted of my parents in the car, turning down the radio on the corner of Ashland and Balmoral and my mom asking, "do you know about sex?" and turning the radio back up after I said "yeah". Awkward.

This led to interesting questions from the 10th graders. Most of them have received HIV/AIDS lectures in the past and definitely have an idea of sexuality, but that didn't prevent them from having lots of questions.

The most interesting question that was asked was, "What's oral sex?"

Even more interesting was the answer. One of the 11th graders said, "Sex represents male or female. Oral means talking."

Wow. I was sitting there thinking, alright, I need to clarify this but my vocabulary is limited on this topic and I was trying to cojugate the verb "to suck" in my head. Luckily, Professor McGuapo was there to explain everything to them. Thank goodness.