This past Saturday I found myself in a car with my best friend, his soon to be wife, and my friend’s younger cousin (lets call him YC), all of us on our way up to the Box Elder Fair. I was a bit apprehensive on my way up, after all cows, corn, and country folk aren’t exactly my cup of tea, but I sucked it up none the less.

On the drive up I was being my usual annoying self, pointing to any and everything in a joking attempt to get out of going to the fair. “Can we go to Lagoon instead?” “I want funnel cake!” “You had better buy me beer…” so on and so fourth. YC, during one of these exchanges exclaims “I want p****!”

Ok, alright, this is cool I guess, I mean this kid is not a day over 18, and I remember having the same urges for the female anatomy. It is a very natural thing – I don’t know if I would blurt it out in a car with my cousin in the front seat, but, you know, whatever.

Now the fair was fun, I took part in libations, spilled ketchup on some girls purse, and saw my first rodeo. As the day was winding down YC was wandering around, trying to pick up on anything that had legs. Again, very natural, no problem there. Unsuccessful, YC slinks back and says that he is ready to go.

Now the drive home was an interesting one. We chose to take the back roads for no particular reason other than YC did not really want to be home. My good friend, being the horn dog that he is, starts talking about sex. After sitting back and letting the conversation go for a little while YC decides to chime in:

“The vagina has two holes right?”

The entire car falls silent at this time, not so much because it was a non sequitur, but because it is so blatantly wrong.

“No” we calmly explain. “The vagina has one “hole,” you are probably thinking of the urethra as it is in the same general area.” “Nope” he replied, “I thought there were two.”

Brushing this off, we continue the conversation. Somehow we were talking about my friends fiancée plans for kids. YC chimes in again with “Man I bet it would suck to have your period and be pregnant.”

Again the car falls silent; at this point I explain what exactly a period does and why you can’t have one while pregnat.

“Huh, well that is cool, at least you don’t have to worry about that.”

Well it was about this time that I had put all the pieces together. YC has never received proper sexual education. I asked him if he had ever taken a health class or maturation class and what they taught in there. He said it was mostly about things like hair growth and your voice changing, but he did not really learn about the biological function of sex and all things related to that – including things like condom use and other safe sex practices. YC received an abstinence only education.

Now YC was clearly wanting to have sex, as his earlier statement proved, but he knew very little about the basics. Had we not explained to him some simple facts, along with further information regarding the emotional, physical, and economic responsibilities surrounding sex, it is quite possible that this kid could get into a lot of trouble rather fast.

Hopefully we educated YC that night, and hopefully he will try to take the time to learn a little bit more; but the point is proven here – ABSTINENCE ONLY DOES NOT WORK!

Listen right wing, I know you want to save the world of the evils of underage/out of wedlock pregnancies, but this is not the way to do it. Perhaps we should consider being frank and honest with young people so that when (yes I said when) they have sex they are at least protected from STD’s and pregnancy. Perhaps you should take the time to actually be a parent when it comes to things like this…I dunno I am just sayin’ is all.