10 Lies You Probably Learned In Sex Ed

Warning: this article may shock and disturb you and if I’m doing my job right, it’ll cause you to rethink your entire existence. I'm here to tell you that you were probably taught a lot of myths about sex from that weird P.E. coach who also teaches sex-ed. *Begins to weep* And they are wrong, so wrong. No, Coach Carr, if you have sex you are not guaranteed to get chlamydia and die. But you might get chlamydia, so please remember the part where he tells you to use a condom. Aside from that, I’m about to ruin everything you’ve ever believed. But fear not! Let us not forget that new information is good information, especially when it comes to sex.

Recently, all kinds of fun sex info has been plaguing news feeds. From Tumblr’s obsession with ass-eating to every website ever’s fascination with female ejaculation, Puritanical America is def ripping its hair out. Which is a GREAT sign. So spread the word! Squirting isn’t pee and masturbation is AWESOME! Tell your friends, your children, your teachers, your dog, your therapist! When you’re jammed into a packed, uptown A train, lean in close to the businessman next to you and whisper in his ear, “Virginity is a lie.” You little revolutionary, you.

1. When you have sex for the first time, you "pop your cherry"

Stop trying to make the cherry happen, it’s NOT going to happen. Because the “cherry” isn’t even real. The “cherry” is what many people call the hymen and the hymen is what many people think is a layer of skin that has to be broken the first time a woman has sex (with a man). Think, bloody sheets. The hymen is actually just a super thin membrane that sits around the vagina and will stretch out when you insert anything inside of it. The hymen doesn’t break, pop, or go away. The hymen is forever. The hymen is immortal.

2. Losing your virginity is a thing that happens

Speaking of things that aren’t real, virginity is a lie. Virginity is a social construction created mostly so that men can have ownership over women and be like, “That is DEFINITELY my baby.” Ugh, bored.

3. The clitoris doesn’t exist. (I never want to write that sentence again)

If you own a clitoris, this might seem like obvious information but (brace yourself) a lot of sex-ed classes DON’T teach kids about the clitoris. Why on earth would they forget to include our magical little button in their lesson plans, you ask? It’s because they’re afraid of it. The clitoris’ ONLY function is to give us an orgasm. It literally does nothing else. Sounds like my dream job. And what happens when girls learn that they possess such powers? The entire world is thrown off of its axis, every economy in the world begins to decline and electrical systems across the country break. So now you know. It’s real, it’s here. Hello, Apocalypse.

4. The whole thing is called a vagina, right?

Wrong. It might not seem super important, but calling our body parts by their given names can help us all out for a variety of reasons. First, it’s just plain respectful. My name isn’t “baby” and I would love it if guys on the street stopped calling me that. Second, they do completely different things! The general term for the external parts of female genitalia is called the vulva while the vagina is on the inside. Head, shoulders, knees, toes, vagina, vulva. Don’t forget it.

5. Vaginas should smell like piña coladas

Listen, the vagina is independent. It doesn’t need a douche or a deodorant or a fragrant wipe. What it needs (like many of us) is to be left alone. The vagina is often described as a self-cleaning oven and this is NOT a myth. It produces the perfect amount of bacteria and acid to maintain a healthy balance and anything that you add to that is gonna mess it up and probably give you the symptoms that you’re trying to avoid in the first place.

6. Female ejaculation is just pee

Once upon a time, a group of science dudes did some science stuff on a tiny number of women and came to a scientific conclusion that when women ejaculate, they’re really just pissing themselves. But then, a bunch of women figured out that (gasp) men don’t actually know that much about female ejaculation.

What we're talking about is “squirting”. Squirting is defined (by NOT the dictionary) as what happens when a woman reaches climax and a significant amount of fluid is expelled from her urethra in response. If you want to know more about squirting, you can Google it. I promise you will find no shortage of information.

While squirting fluid (look for it in your local hardware store, jk) is very similar to pee, in that it shares many of the same compounds and comes out of the same place, it's not pee. And telling women that it is pee, is also telling them that their orgasmic experience is all wrong. So stop it, plz.

7. There’s one way to orgasm, and that’s by screaming at the top of your lungs.

However you experience orgasm is the right way to orgasm. Whether that results in a noise complaint or could go unnoticed in a library, you’re doing just fine.

8. Masturbation is gross and humans are the only ones who do it.

Don’t get me wrong, humans are totally gross, but we’re definitely not the only ones who masturbate. Dolphins, horses, penguins and squirrels have all been caught flicking the bean and jacking the beanstalk. They might not have two-thousand dollar vibrators like us but hey, we’ve only discovered a small portion of Planet Earth so let’s not rule anything out.

9. If you’re masturbating while you’re in a relationship, you must not be having good sex

Masturbation is NOT a substitute for relationship sex. Just like watching an episode of 90210 by myself in which I get to really meditate on the looming sexual tension between Annie and Liam is NOT the same as watching it with my partner. Masturbation feels good and that’s why we do it, and that’s why we’ll never stop doing it. Plain and simple.

10. The only way to have an orgasm is through penetration

News flash, it’s the opposite. Women are exponentially more likely to have an orgasm from clitoral stimulation than from vaginal penetration. That rhymes, so let’s turn it into our national anthem and sing it from the mountaintops.

Images: Flickr Ian Burt/flickr; Tumblr (10)