Sex Education – Catholic School Style

All Freshman were required to take sex ed at my high school. The sex ed class was taught by Father Kelsch. He was a nice man and fairly young for a priest ( he is a heterosexual and not one of the pervs you hear about, trying to bump uglies with any and all of the students within a 20 mile radius). Oh, I know he is a heterosexual, because a few years after I graduated he left the priesthood to marry a parish secretary and I heard they have kids now. He is about the 4th priest I know of to have an affair with a parish secretary, so if you’re into priests, you know what job track to be headed down. So, where was I? Father Kelsch taught sex ed and no matter how nice he was, it is creepy being taught about sex ed from a man who has vowed to be chaste for most of his adult life.

This was no mild mannered sex ed class, we were given handouts, booklets and watched videos on conception and childbirth (that video did it for me, there wasn’t no man worth going through that for, uht, uh, no way). We were also taught, in detail about birth control and the pros and cons of each method (at least they did not show us how to use condoms with a banana), with an emphasis on abstinence. And, yes, the only approved method of birth control in the Catholic Church is ‘The Rhythm Method’ (I am not sure but, I think, the failure rate is around 60%). It was with complete revulsion that we sat and listened to one of our married male teachers, who was certified to teach ‘The Rhythm Method’, tell us how to read our cervical fluid. He also stated that for a 7-10 period each month you had to abstain from sex (I am sure he was thinking, if you are still having sex after the first 6 months of marriage. We were thinking, how in the hell do you do that? Is that possible? Hormonal teens, don’t you just love ‘em?)

The good Father also took pains to tell us of some of the confessions he had heard over the years to debunk common myths. My favorite is the poor girl who came in after she found out she was pregnant. She told Father she did not know how she had gotten pregnant. “Weeelll, did you have sex?” “Oh, yes, Father, we had sex… in the car, on the beach, on the floor, sure we had sex, but not in the bed. I thought you could only get pregnant if you had sex in bed.”

I got an A plus in the class, don’t tell my husband, he’ll wonder what for….but, I had 2 good male friends that actually got D’s in the class. Apparently, they are going to need a roadmap to find the feminine pearl of happiness. I hope they wives/girlfriends were made aware of this before anything substantial took place, in the bed (or on the beach or in the car….)