Welcome to Alice Column, in which Alice Laussade writes stories about things on (roughly) the same day of (roughly) every week, making it (roughly) a column. Got an idea for a column? Start your own blog and write it up, you lazy shit.
"A yeast infection looks like chicken noodle soup." In those eight words, my sex ed teacher at W.T. White High School taught me all I ever wanted to know about yeast infections. (That's the moment I became interested in food writing, too.)
My sex-ed teacher was a not-fucking-around track coach at WTW. At the beginning of each day of sex ed, he told us he was required by law to tell us that abstinence was the best policy. (That's still a thing. Check out the recent Observer cover story "Sex Ed the Texas Way," by Anna Merlan.)
See also: Sex Ed the Texas Way
Meanwhile, "Sex and Candy" played on KDGE-FM 94.5 The Edge in a loop while my friends traded stories about how many times they'd done it in the Senior Courtyard (generously donated by the PTA).
Whether or not schools continue to teach abstinence, there will always be boners trying to put themselves into stuff. As a parent of a little girl, I know I must handle this very seriously (unless I'm hoping for her to have a reality-TV career at 16). And I'm not just talking about The Talk. I'm talking about setting your girl up with serious boner killers for every year of high school, just like my parents did for me:
Freshman year: Get your girl a jacked-up haircut. Freshman year, my mother took me to the hair salon and recommended that we "Go short!" I'm not saying a short haircut on some girls isn't cute. I'm saying that on me it was a headshot to the boner.
Sophomore year: A shitty, small car. Mine was a VW Beetle that couldn't go more than 50 mph. Any boner that got into this vehicle was so scared for its life that it turned itself into a vagina by the end of the trip.
Junior year: Braces or giant retainer or required daytime headgear (depending on severity of your kid's hotness). This option is more pricey, but my research has proven it to be extremely effective at boner deflection.
Senior year: "No, you can't go on the senior trip to Cancún." When she gets all 18 on you, say: "I'm sorry, sweetie. Cancún is a boner sea. You would be swimming in boners, and let's be real -- you're not the best swimmer when you're swimming in not-boners. I fear you might drown in Mexico's boner ocean."
If your kids are in DISD schools, they're likely to learn more about chicken noodle soup than they will about actual sex-type things. Nut up and talk to them about sex yourself -- and get them shitty haircuts just to be on the safe side.
