This Male Sex Ed Teacher is a Little Too Confident When Saying “Menstruation”
Local middle school Sex Education teacher and football coach, Mr. Peteson, is making his students feel uneasy during his semi-annual lesson about puberty.
“It’s like he just says the word really loud, like to prove he’s cool about the subject” said Angie, a 14 year old in his class. “We get it, it’s not weird, it’s a part of life. I mean I’ve had mine for like 3 years already, not to brag. But,once he found out I had mine when I asked him for a pad, he then announced it to the class out of ‘joy.’ I wanted to die.”
“He does kind of puff out his chest when he says it, almost like he’s describing a football play. I didn’t like it when I got a C on a pop quiz last week about the female reproductive system. He made me do 28 push-ups in front of the class in solidarity of all who experience the 21-28 day menstrual cycle.” described his student Jared, 13.
However, according to Principal Roth, it wasn’t always like this. Coach Peteson had to overcome his discomfort after years, and it wasn’t until a very heated PTO meeting where many parent complaints were thrown towards him, along with pads and tampons and eventually a chair.Peteson decided it was time to change paths.
“They were right, I shouldn’t have been giggling through the word ‘vagina.’ I almost keeled over talking about discharge, I could barely get through the lesson, and the boys would start giggling too and only made it harder. But then I took a good hard look at myself, dressed my wounds, bucked up, and decided enough's enough. It’s not funny. Periods are a part of life, and it sounds like sometimes they can maybe really suck.”
But can a male Sex Ed teacher sound too confident when describing the menstrual cycle? Or Is this the path forward that public education administrators always wanted–teetering between compassion and thoroughness while being awkward and downright fucking weird. Local male Sex Educators are continuing to navigate this fine line during what The Atlantic describes as the pre-post-post-Me-Too era.