Growing up, my parents had this evening tradition of watching telenovelas (Spanish soap operas). I remember being about 8 years old walking by the living room and catching glimpses on the t.v. of dramatic crying, intense stares, and loud gasps. After so many trips past the living room, I became invested. Like, why couldn't Alfosina and Alejandro’s families set aside their family rivalry and allow them to live happily ever after? I needed to see how this love story ends. 

I slowly started joining my parents at 7pm on the living room couch. And this wasn't just a once-a-week thing—it was Monday - Friday, one hour each day, for MONTHS. Here I was, an 8-year-old, getting a crash course about love through a VERY fictional storyline.

When kissing scenes would happen, my mom would yell, "Cierra los ojos!" signaling me to cover my eyes. I would put my hands over my face and wait until my mom gave me the green light.  After a few times, my curiosity would get the best of me and I’d start to peek through my fingers.  I mean, kissing seemed kind of cool.  Once things got too intense, I would be asked to leave the living room, and by intense, I mean, the sex scenes.  

These sex scenes pretty much consisted of passionate make out sessions with a man and a woman under the covers, you would not get anything more than that. I think most telenovelas at that time were PG-13.

Fast forward a bit, I  am now 10-11 years old and my only understanding of love and sex comes from binge-watching telenovelas and if I am being honest, I still didn’t really know what happened under the covers. I started learning things at school, not through actual classes but through my friends making comments or jokes and most of the things still went over my head. I could not ask my parents or siblings about it because these topics were never talked about at home. Never even mentioned. 

I am in fifth grade and my teacher hands out permission slips to the whole class. Boys get one form, girls get another. My teacher very vaguely explains how we will go to the library the next day to learn about our bodies and the changes we will experience. Oh, and our parents needed to sign the permission slip for us to attend.

“What the hell is going to happen to my body?” I thought to myself. Keep in mind, I had not hit puberty at all. I did not even need a training bra at the time. The class starts to whisper:

“We are going to watch people doing IT!”

“We are going to see wieners!” 

“My sister told me they are going to talk about periods, we are going to start bleeding.” 

So here I am, very telenovela influenced and everything the kids in the classroom were describing just sounded gross. I went home. I handed my mom the permission slip. She read it, didn't say anything and signed it. 

It is now time to gather in the library while the boys are escorted to the gym. I walk in and sit down in front of the tv cart with a little tv and a VHS player. There was not much of an introduction other than my teacher telling us to stay quiet and pay attention. The video begins and the woman in the video starts going over the changes to our breasts,  hair growth in certain places, the amazing menstrual cycle, and the use of pads. This was even worse than I imagined. 

The phrases sexual intercourse, penetration, and sperm were brought up. I remember it going something like “There will come a time when a man and a woman will have sexual intercourse and sperm will enter the woman's body and this can lead to a baby…” This was the first time I truly heard someone say or describe (in a very high level way) how babies were made, but then it took a dark turn quickly. She added “but this could also lead to diseases like….” Once they finished describing all the ways we could possibly die, the video ends and we were handed a pamphlet and a BIG ASS PAD. 

I am walking out now with a pamphlet in one hand and a diaper in another. Was this the reality of growing up? We just wait to get hairy, start bleeding, make babies, and oh yea, risk getting a disease and dying from sex? 

That was it. My sex talk. It was not until I actually got my period that my mom went over what being a woman was like, but still the subject of sex was not really brought up. I figured my parents thought since I was not even allowed to have a boyfriend, why would they need to talk about sex? 

So what happened? I learned about sex the day I lost my virginity. I had no idea what I was doing. All I thought was that I was in a relationship, just graduated high school, and I was in love. I was an adult and this is what adult relationships consist of. I remember laying there with my shirt still on because the thought of someone  seeing me fully naked was so uncomfortable.  I did not say a word the whole 5 minutes even when I experienced some pain. I felt so awkward and too embarrassed to speak up. I look back now and that moment was as much mine as it was his and it could have been so much less intimidating if I was more informed and prepared. Every woman deserves that. 

At the end of the day, I didn’t die from sex, but it also wasn’t like the telenovelas. The lighting wasn’t perfect, and my makeup and hair didn’t somehow look better afterwards. Although I still love telenovelas, turns out they might not be the best replacement for sex ed.


- Maira