The Birds, The Bees, and You and Me
Olivia Hinebaugh
Published by: Swoon Reads
Publication date: January 22nd 2019
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Seventeen-year-old Lacey Burke is the last person on the planet who should be doling out sex advice. For starters, she’s never even kissed anyone, and she hates breaking the rules. Up until now, she’s been a straight-A music geek that no one even notices. All she cares about is jamming out with her best friends, Theo and Evita.
But then everything changes.
When Lacey sees first-hand how much damage the abstinence-only sex-ed curriculum of her school can do, she decides to take a stand and starts doling out wisdom and contraception to anyone who seeks her out in the girls’ restroom. But things with Theo become complicated quickly, and Lacey is soon not just keeping everyone else’s secrets, but hers as well.
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EXCERPT:
Evita and I drop our lunch stuff in Theo’s locker because it’s the closest to the senior seminar classroom. We’re the first to arrive, so we claim our usual table in the back. Theo slips in right bef
ore the bell, sitting a row in front of us. There’s this nervous-looking guy sitting behind the teacher’s desk. Our teacher, Mrs. Einhorn, introduces him as the guest speaker.
“We’re starting a new unit on healthy life choices. Mr. Robbins is here to kick this unit off. He has a lot of wisdom to share, so I hope you give him your attention.”
Evita and I exchange a look. We’re generally on the same wavelength. Without saying anything, I know she’s as skeptical as I am that our backward school will ever teach us anything useful in a health unit. Evita and I have more than just music in common. We were both raised by single mothers. Single, liberal, feminist mothers. My mom was a teenager when she had me, and she has spent my entire life talking to me about “healthy life choices.” Things like safe sex and consent and women’s health.
Mom and I still laugh about how my sophomore health class was a lot like the one in Mean Girls, where the gym teacher is so uncomfortable discussing sex that he basically tells them just “don’t do it,” then hands out condoms. Our class was a lot like that . . . minus the condom part. When I told her about that class, my mom threatened to take the issue of abstinence-only sex education to the school board. But at the end of sophomore year, she found out she was pregnant with my little brother, Dylan, and a few things fell by the wayside. We still smash the patriarchy in smaller, subtler ways.
“To get us thinking about the impact our choices have on our lives, Mr. Robbins is going to be talking about the choices he has made. Some were healthy, and some were not. I’m hoping you’ll learn a lot from his experiences,” Mrs. Einhorn says.
Mr. Robbins stands up awkwardly and grips index cards that he starts to read from. At first, he’s mostly talking about alcohol. His story is familiar. Half the kids here could probably relate to it. First, he was just drinking at parties, then whenever he was with friends, then all the time, even when he was alone. Theo, Evita, and I are generally too busy with music to go to parties in the mountains or at the nearby college campus. But we still hear all about them. From everyone.
Half the class is doodling or fiddling with jewelry or chew- ing on pencils, even when Mr. Robbins talks about dabbling in other drugs. But then Mr. Robbins starts talking about sex. Every- one sits a little taller.
But instead of going into anything useful about sexual health, he just lists it as a regret. Being drunk and high all the time caused him to do the unforgivable: he had life-ruining sex! The kind where you get a girl pregnant.
Mrs. Einhorn starts chiming in with how sex is not something you can take back. She and Mr. Robbins are demonizing sex at every turn and my hands flex and un-flex. I bite my lip to keep from blurting something out. They are completely skipping an important issue. If you’re going to talk about drugs and sex, then you should be talking about consent and how tricky the issue is when you are drinking. Or about—I don’t know—contraception!
But of course, they don’t talk about contraception. Because if you get pregnant, then it’s obviously your fault for making bad choices. Shame on you!
This whole talk reeks of stigma. And if my mom has taught me anything, it’s that demonizing and stigmatizing sex prevents everyone from getting information on safer sex. That stigma hits girls extra hard. And my mom knows about that because she was once a pregnant teenager. Instead of getting support from her family and friends, she got a lot of judgment. If I could travel back in time and punch my mom’s unsupportive friends in the face, I would. And I’m not generally a violent person.
I keep fighting the urge to raise my hand and give them a piece of my mind, but I always chicken out. Just when I don’t think I can keep these thoughts to myself any longer, the bell finally rings. I get out of there as fast as I can. My face is burning because this whole class feels like an attack on everything I’ve been taught and believe in.
Theo and Evita catch up to me and Theo hands me a tally sheet. If they can tell I’m upset by the class, they choose not to address that.
“What’s this?”
“Eye rolls, Burke. Yours.”
“You sit in front of me,” I point out.
“Yes, but you make this sound when you roll your eyes,” Theo says.
“I do not!”
Author Bio:
Olivia Hinebaugh loves all stripes of literature for children. When she isn’t writing fiction, she can be found writing freelance, making art, discovering new songs on spotify, texting her writing buddies, or folding laundry. She lives near Washington, D.C. with her spouse, three kids, a dog that looks like a coyote, and a one-eyed cat. The Birds, The Bees, And You And Me is her debut novel.
Thanks for sharing, Mary! :)
ReplyDeleteThis was quite an open and honest look at sex and sexuality. PLUS we got friends, family, and a sweet romance.
ReplyDelete