YESTERDAY, VOLUNTEERS from the anti-bullying organisation ShoutOut were turned away from a Dublin school a half an hour before they were due to give a workshop on homophobic bullying – with the school saying “both sides should be represented”.
This morning, Coláiste Eoin in Stillorgan said the workshop was not cancelled, but postponed until advice was sought from the Catholic management of the school.
In response to this, Irish people have been sharing their grim experiences of sex education in Catholic schools on Twitter to highlight the importance of workshops like these.
And they are very grim. Take a look:
A story from TheJournal.ie commenter tink04, from a previous open thread on sex ed:
We definitely went through the mechanics of it in Biology, but in 6th Year we had a lady come in and all I can remember about it was that she had seven or eight kids herself, and that you should always go to the toilet as soon as you need to, otherwise you’ll get cystitis.
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A tale of Eurotrash from commenter Jonathan Ryan:
My sex ed was one hour long class that covered the biological changes our bodies were going through. The rest of mine came from late night TV when all were in bed. Eurotrash is all I can remember now.
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This grim story from commenter S:
[We got] none at all. I don’t even think we got to that chapter in biology. We (the girls) did get taken out of class when we were about 16 and had our periods explained to us. You know, in case we’d been wondering what had been going on down there the last few years.
Commenter Oliver got some inadvertently wise words from a teacher:
I always think about when my teacher told me about the dangers of getting women pregnant by sitting on the toilet before them… Words I always remember to this day. I ALWAYS wipe the toilet seat after me.
And commenter wellyd got some brand new information during her school sex talk:
“Some boys may have penises.” First year in a convent school in 2001 by a 70-year-old woman. We didn’t hear another word because we were laughing so hard after hearing that!
Shudder.
