People Share Embarrassing Moments in Health Class and Sex Ed

24. That one teacher who gave false information to the class. “After switching from nursing school to education, I took a job as a teacher’s aide.… Trista - December 4, 2021

24. That one teacher who gave false information to the class.

“After switching from nursing school to education, I took a job as a teacher’s aide. It was in a 6th-grade class to make sure I wanted to be a teacher. This was back in the late ’90s. So, the kids had many questions about HIV/AIDS. I had done some basic research when I was in nursing school about protease inhibitors for my undergrad chem class the previous semester. The teacher who was teaching the sex ed lesson asked if I could share any info with the class. I talked to them about how HIV is transmitted. (Blood, semen, vaginal fluid, and breastmilk.) Also, how scientists were working on combining drugs to stop the virus and stop it from mutating.”

Skiballerina goes on to say, “I gave myself a silent pat on the back for a decent explanation that was 6th grade appropriate. Then the teacher (who was probably in her early 50s) added a bit. She said, “back in the ’70s, gay men were having sex everywhere. They made clubs just to go and have sex. They would have sex in movie theaters. Wherever they could. And that’s how all the AIDS spread.” I was shocked and didn’t know what to say. She was the teacher. I was just an aide (and only 19 years old at that!). So, I didn’t feel like I could do anything but just said, ‘um…well then.’”

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23. Kids really do ask the darnedest things, even as teenagers.

“A few years ago, I was working at an after-school youth program, along with my roommate. I taught computers and did science experiments; she was a lifestyle teacher and did nutrition and health lessons, including a fully comprehensive sex ed unit for those kids whose parents opted them in. They had different levels for the various age groups. I believe this happened in the 11-12 class.”

Hufflepufftato continues, “So one night in sex ed, they’re covering all the types of sexual activity that aren’t penis-in-vagina. Roommate explains that one thing you can do is use your mouth to stimulate the other person’s penis, vagina, or anus. The kids take this in stride. They ruminate on it for a minute. It’s quiet. Then one hand goes up, and the kid asks: “Miss, is that why, in that one song, they say ‘you gotta eat the booty like groceries’?” Asked with 100% earnestness.”

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22. These things would make one shake their head.

“Where I live, the basics are studied in class (period, male and female reproductive organs, reproduction). But sometimes, teachers will ask someone to talk to their students about more things like the difference between sexual behaviors and sexual orientation. Plus, the different sexual acts, etc. It might not always sex ed per se. Someone who’s at ease with talking sex with a bunch of teenagers and telling things as they are. And sometimes that person is me,” says AndOtherPlaces.

“Now, I have to say that I’ve never found a question awkward or cringe-worthy. They’re asking questions, and it’s always hard for them to do it, even if it’s anonymously, so I always keep that in mind. Well, anyway, I don’t know what it is with male teenagers and Nutella, but there’s always one or two each time asking me if they can use it as lube with their girlfriend/boyfriend. Also, many questions about sex toys. And one kid explained to me that porn was the devil and was invented to keep people from reproducing.”

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21. Sometimes, it just happens.

“So it happened that when I was still young (Elementary age circa), we had Sex Education as part of our program from the last year before heading to middle school. So it goes like this: they took in a tv, put a VHS Tape (really weird tho, we had already CDs and Blue-Ray) and just like that they made us watch some sort of romantic story between a teenage girl and a guy who in the end basically bonga-bonga together. (Still don’t know why we watched that thing! Although, it was some sort of censored and explained with some drawings-animations).”

Lieutent_Delta goes on to say, “Interesting film, I would say, both girls and guys were like: “Oh my lord, so this is what happens!” Staring each other with some kind of pervert eyes, until a dude (who was particularly involved in watching that tape, apparently) came out of nowhere and asked our teacher: “Teacher? Why do I have my pee-pee like a stick?” Useless to say that we started laughing, and the teacher was that embarrassed to answer that she actually replied, ‘It is just the nature.’”

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20. High fives for this health teacher.

“This is always a good story. It was my first-year substitute teaching for a charter school, and they had me teaching multiple subjects. They were kind of testing me to see if I would fit as a full time in the future. So they said, “Hey, we need you to teach a quick science lesson for boys about reproduction” So I was young and naïve and, without questions, agreed. I walked past the girl’s class, who had a nurse talking to them. They asked questions like, how long does pregnancy take? What are good ways to be healthy when you’re pregnant? Like good thought-out questions. I went to the boy’s room, thinking it would be similar. Now I knew these boys from hanging around the school. They were in 5th grade and low income, more or less hood (but good) kid,” shares axe_murdererer.

“They had written anonymous questions on paper that I just started picking up and reading… What do boobs feel like? Or what does a vagina look like? What does sex feel like? I had to think quickly about these to be appropriate. But half of my answers were laughing at the question than telling them to ask their parents. Then they asked me if I had ever had sex, and I asked them what they thought. They said yes, and I agreed, and all the boys shouted and cheered, coming up to me, giving me broshakes and high fives. It was hilarious. Not to mention, I’m pretty sure the lead teaching faculty placed a camera in there to watch later… Oof. But I got hired.”

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19. That embarrassed principal (Part 1).

“Not a teacher, but when I was in 5th grade (yes, I know that was early, my school district was strange). There were no male teachers to talk to us boys about what’s up down there (for clarification, we were split up into boys and girls). So, as any sane (female) principal would do in the early 2010s, we got taught about sex by good old Principal Beck. So, us being 5th graders that pretty much all already knew about the male part of sex and were slightly horny listening to a woman in her mid-40s say “penis,” “sex,” etc. We filled our anonymous question jar with things that we wanted her to say aloud. For the first few questions, she made the mistake of holding them under the document camera hooked up to a projector that displayed the image clear as day on the classroom wall before she reviewed them and deemed them appropriate,” shares anunnamedbeing.

“After she put them under the camera, then and only then would she look at the question. The first one (my friend’s) read, and I quote: “What is your preferred dick size?” She placed it under the camera and got as far as “preferred d*ck.” She then proceeded to turn bright red and promised that she would catch whoever did this and that this system was not to be abused like this, blah blah blah, and stopped showing them under the document camera. But we had thought ahead and marked the backs of our with some symbol so that when she was reading a question from a specific student, they would know it and whisper to everyone else what the question was, as she threw them away with disgusted looks on her face.”

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18. That embarrassed principal (Part 2).

Anunnamedbeing continues, “There were a couple of normal ones, followed by some weird ones. (I’ll make honorable mentions if anyone wants them.) The ninth or so question came, and read “When did you lose your virginity?” She read the entire question completely out loud. (And, later, she said that she thought it was OK to say, and the kids were just curious). So, she whispered, with an awkward look on her face, “13.” Before this, we were all laughing at her, knowing what weird stuff she was reading. But then this came. What the actual heck.”

“Like if you were going to read it, please ponder your response for a second and make something up. But now we are a bunch of 9 and 10-year-olds that now know that their principal had sex around our age. Hands shot up with tons of questions (who was it, where, how did it feel, etc.) She ran out of the room crying, leaving us to ponder what had just happened. Needless to say, when my brother had that lesson (I should note that they made it an entire day affair), they brought one of the male teachers from the middle school over to talk about it. Principal Beck quit at the end of that year. Good times.”

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17. At least they got their answer.

“I’m not a sex ed teacher, but I am a tutor at a middle school. Last year, the 8th graders watched the dreaded birth video in their health classes (if they had the fun teacher, they also got to watch it in reverse). I had a boy one day go up to present his problem to our group. He admitted that he already knew how to solve his problem. But, he asked if he could present something they had been learning in health. I figured if the kid already knew his math and health are technically part of their academic work, why not? This boys class had already watched the birth video and commented that the woman’s pubes were “long and messy.” Now, this video has got to be an easy 20+ years old. I imagine that it wasn’t all the rage to have shortly trimmed or completely shaved pubes.”

AbjectPandora continues to say, “So, noting the color of the woman’s pubes compared to the hair on her head, asked if pubic hair was always the same color as the hair on their head or if they were different colors. Legit question, right? At this age, they don’t really have much experience with people and other teens their own age, so their only experience with nudity and sex is what they learn in health and from watching porn. (And we all know that porn is rarely reflective of reality). For a good five minutes, I was completely silent and a little taken off guard as my whole group of about eight kids (and the eight or so kids from the neighboring group) waited for my reply. Finally, I just told them that, generally, the carpet matches the drapes. The boy and the rest of the kids pondered for a few moments, nodded in acceptance, and moved on.”

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16. A sex ed teacher with a good attitude.

“My sex ed teacher was wheelchair-bound. He and his wife had just had their second child several months before school started. When the sex ed week came around, a ton of classmates kept asking about “wheelchair sex” and how he had done it. He would refer to a page number in the health book and move on, but kids were not satisfied with his answer. They kept asking if he had sensation or had to hold it up with his hand, etc.”

Nightcactus goes on with their story to say, “This was the same health teacher who would purposefully throw himself out of his wheelchair onto the ground during first aid / CPR week and say, “help me!” The same teacher during safety week brought martial artists to class to talk about self-defense. He broke a board with his hand and nearly caused his chair to fall backward. He was fantastic.”

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15. Someone, please explain that one.

“I remember one day in the 5th grade, in the US, my teacher rolled in the TV cart. You all know the one. The lights dimmed, and everyone got excited for movie time! Then the tape played, and it was a bunch of kids talking about puberty. There was one really memorable line in that video that I will literally never forget no matter how long I live or how damaged my brain becomes. One of the kids in a montage of kids saying random stuff about puberty was a boy who said….”

Payperplain continues, “Mine’s not as big as everyone’s.” Even at the tender age of 9, that raised so many questions for me that have never been answered. Why did that kid know he had a smaller penis than the rest of his classmates? Why were they sharing and comparing like that? We didn’t have showers or locker rooms in gym class or anything like that at that age. What the heck?”

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14. These kids weren’t paying attention during sex ed.

Mercfan3 shares, “Not a sex ed teacher – although sometimes my classrooms turn into sex ed classrooms..when a student says something so dumb I have to correct them. A few years ago, I was close to three students. It was a brother (18) and sister (17), and the brother’s best friend (17). The brother was a special ed student (dyslexia and a little emotionally stunted) and had his first girlfriend. His sister came up to me, worried that he was going to get his new girlfriend pregnant because he refused to listen to any safe sex talk.”

“I knew it would be too awkward for him to discuss with me, so I talked to his best friend. His best friend was an intelligent student with a cool mom – who I knew had been taught correctly. I questioned him about a few things, and it seemed like he understood condoms and everything. The best friend talked to the brother. We were having a conversation about safe sex. The best friend goes, “you can’t get a girl pregnant after the first round, so that’s the only time I use a condom.” It still horrifies me.”

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13. Luckily, they had someone to teach them.

“So I teach at a community college now, but this happened back in my undergrad days, during my student teaching placement. I was placed with a 5th-grade teacher (a female) who sort of partner-taught with another 5th-grade teacher (a male). At the time, these two teachers were piloting, splitting the classes up by gender to teach certain subjects, the idea being that at this age, students are more likely to engage because they won’t be as worried about embarrassing themselves in front of their peers of the opposite sex. There have actually been some pretty great results with similar programs, but I digress. So we split up the classes one day to have “the talk.” The female teacher and I were having a pretty successful chat with the girls. They were being mature and asking appropriate questions,” says atouchofrazzledazzle.

“After the period ended, and students were leaving to go to lunch, gym, etc., The other teacher comes into the room, his eyes completely bugged out and just shaking his head. He divulges that he began the chat by stating something along the lines of, “OK, so guys have penises. Do any of you know what girls have?”. Complete silence. No hands go up. After a moment, one kid sheepishly raised his hand and said, “a p*ssy?” Of course, all the boys lost it and laughed hysterically. The male teacher said he thought it was a little funny, but mostly he was really sad that these kids (who, by the way, are 10-11 years old) knew the word p*ssy, but not vagina. I should add that this was a very rough school. Most of these kids were exposed to way too much at this age. Plus, they didn’t have the best home lives.”

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12. The students weren’t expecting that answer.

“I taught sex ed for several years to grade 10 students. One of the most hilarious questions came from our anonymous box, which I told students I would answer every question in the box as long as it wasn’t personally about me. Now, if you know anything about high school students, you know they enjoy embarrassing their teachers. So one of my students decided they could get me to say something embarrassing in front of the class when I read their question.”

Dark-Strings2230 continues, “The question asked was, “is it good to eat the booty like groceries?” The whole class erupts into laughter as I read the question out loud. However, my students know that I’m not easily embarrassed… so I begin explaining what analingus was, why people might enjoy that, and how to do it safely, all in a very professional and technical way. The look of horror on their faces was PRICELESS!”

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11. A health teacher with quick comebacks.

“How about a cringe-worthy answer? I went to a small school that struggled to hire and keep good teachers for science courses. My senior year, I took an anatomy elective taught by a lady who knew nothing about anatomy. (She had a Ph.D. in chemistry and was desperate for a job). When discussing the anatomy of genitals, my high school GF thought it would be funny if she asked the teacher what a circumcised penis was. The teacher pauses and then explains it is like someone is wearing a turtle neck sweater who cuts it to a v-neck, except it’s the skin of a penis.”

“She fumbles through the analogy and then turns to me and asks me, “Is that right redneckjep?” Of course, everyone starts laughing. Then she makes the next comment, “Well, I am sure all you boys know who is circumcised and who isn’t.” Yes, she thought all the guys would occasionally go to the bathrooms together to compare or something. She was also the lady who described her first time in a little too much detail. She said how awful sex is for women. That it’s something to be put up with. Ah, so many memories of her saying really weird stuff.”

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10. Not what the health teacher intended.

“I had a student ask me why a woman doesn’t get pregnant whenever she has sex. I explained about ovulation and the basics of the cycle’s timing. Unfortunately, two months later, she turns up pregnant. She had been trying without success, and I gave her enough information to achieve her goals. She was 14. I had a 17-year-old ask me why babies don’t drown when pregnant women go swimming.”

MuppetManiac goes on to say, “I had a girl ask me if she needed to really take the pill every day, or just when she had sex. Right after that last one, a kid named Mannie, whom I will remember until my dying day. He put two and two together and asked, “Hold up, miss, hold up. You’re telling me, there’s a pill girls can take, and they don’t get pregnant? WHY ARE ALL THESE GIRLS PREGNANT?” I don’t know Mannie. I truly don’t know.”

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9. What an embarrassing jr. high school scenario.

“So back in 6th grade. The whole class (100 students) went to the auditorium for a sex ed conference. During the Q&A, I asked what would happen if two sperm cells from different men entered an egg cell simultaneously. I literally asked this question with the most innocent tone and genuine scientific curiosity a 6th grader could express. The teacher asked me to repeat the question, and I thought she didn’t understand me, so I repeated it louder. Here I was thinking she didn’t understand when in reality this woman was shocked I was talking about double penetration creampies in front of 100 12-year-old kids.” says FirebatDZ.

“Finally, a female friend of mine stands up and says, “OH! I know what you are talking about! My mom told me of people that do weird gatherings to have sex and – – “she obviously didn’t get to finish cause at that time, the teacher did the loudest screech to shut everyone up. The conference ended right there. Everyone was sent to their classrooms. I never understood why my question wasn’t answered until years later. I started watching porn, and I felt so bad when I figured it out.”

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8. That sex ed lesson didn’t go as planned.

“I’ve taught sexed for years – one of my funniest exchanges was when the girls in a Year 9 class were complaining about girls getting a raw deal through puberty. I agreed that as females, yes, we do get quite a crappy deal, but we don’t have to deal with unwanted erections. ‘Do you mean boners miss?’ Called out one of the more ‘difficult’ boys in the class. ‘Yes, I do mean boners.’ At which point, one boy squirmed in his seat and sheepishly said, ‘so any boy can get them at any time?’ ‘Well, yes!’ I responded. Then the ‘difficult’ boy shouted out, ‘I’ve got one now and stood up to show the class the bulge in his trousers,” shares Polstar242.

“Then another one of the boys called out, ‘my longest boner lasted for 1 minute 37 seconds.’ The class then erupted into boys admitting to either getting boners in lessons or telling me how long their boners lasted. It was… Enlightening. I’ve had to answer questions about how lesbians and gay men have sex. I got asked once what a cream pie was. I’ve been asked, ‘what are those flappy bits around my girl bits?’. One boy even informed the whole class that if you keep poking a clit it will eventually ‘go off.’ I love teaching sex ed as I try to be as open and honest as the British School System will allow me!”

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7. The class was just curious.

“Not a teacher, of course, but a student. This was 7th grade, if I remember correctly. We had just finished learning about STDs. Plus, we had been shown what some of the symptoms look like for those with visible symptoms. We had an anonymous question box that we could all write questions down and have answered. Most were typical of what you see in the thread here. However, there was one fairly specific question. ‘Can you get genital herpes on your mouth from oral sex?’”

Arglebargle82 goes on saying, “Cue the girl in the front row with a visible cold sore whipping around in her chair and glaring at the rest of the class, asking whom the heck put that question in the box. No one owned up to it. In hindsight, I feel bad for her because that had to be embarrassing as heck, but at the time, it was all I could do not to fall over laughing. You could hear a pin drop in that classroom, as the teacher confirmed that you could transmit HSV2 via oral sex.”

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6. When the health teacher loses their place.

“Not a teacher. This story is told from the perspective of the student (me). In my senior year of high school, I took an anatomy and physiology class for college credit, with both juniors and seniors in the class. My best friend (male) and several of my best female friends were also in the class, and we occupied the back corner of the room. On the day we discussed methods of contraception, the teacher was trying to clinically explain that the “pullout” method was not effective in birth control because of the presence of sperm in the urethra. A girl in the class, a few rows ahead of us, raised her hand and asked, “If the boy is a virgin, why would there be sperm in his urethra?” says cncordray.

“My buddy and I could barely stifle ourselves in the back row. Her question was absolutely in earnest, which made the whole thing that much funnier. The teacher was trying to delicately hint at the concept of masturbation without actually saying the word, and the girl just wasn’t picking up what he was putting down. The girl sitting next to her leaned over and whispered something in her ear, and she looked up and said, “Ohhh!” My buddy and I lost it. One of those moments where the harder we tried, the worse it got. The teacher had completely lost control of the class for a good several minutes. The poor girl was absolutely mortified. Once the class finally started to come back together, the teacher looked down at his textbook and said, “Well, now I’ve completely lost my place…”. That just blew the lid off the class all over again. We got nothing more accomplished for the rest of the day.”

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5. How to horrify the sex ed teacher.

“When I was in grade 9 (15 years old), a girl asked our elective class drama teacher. She said, “can you get pregnant from swallowing after a blowjob?” The male drama teacher looks slightly horrified by all the implications of the question but slowly answered. “Well, the stomach and uterus aren’t connected at all, so no.” But she continued. She said, “if a girl has a hole in the bottom of her stomach and a hole at the top of her uterus … and she swallows after a blowjob, can she get pregnant then?” The drama teacher gave her a long, weirded-out stare before answering, “well, there are several things between the stomach and the uterus in a body…” “But if there wasn’t. Like if there was a tube connecting it, or something, would it be possible?”

RangerGnome continues, “…the stomach acid would probably kill all the sperm before it made it through to the uterus.” “What if she had really low stomach acid?” Very long pause, staring as though questioning his whole career. “Sure. If all of these entirely impossible factors lined up, a woman could get pregnant from swallowing after a blow job.” “But nothing is impossible, so if all that happened to a person, it could happen!” By this point, all giggles from my classmates and I had subsided into stares of disbelief. Even as Catholic school kids, we all knew that was ridiculous. Our sex ed wasn’t that bad.”

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4. Not the questions this teacher wanted to answer.

“I’m not a teacher, but in the middle of sex ed in grade 9, a boy in my class asked my teacher this during the conversation about women’s reproductive systems and how the vagina can stretch when pushing out a baby… Boy: “so, does that mean that the vagina can stretch with things going in?”…all the girls and guys knew what he was asking, but assuming it was a fair question, my teacher simply replied. Teacher: “yes, but not in the same way. But a woman’s vagina can stretch to fit a larger penis to a certain extent width-wise. That’s different for every woman, and that’s general.” OK, feeling awkward but OK.”

chiseledjawline12 continues, “He raises his hand again. Boy: “so does that mean you could fit a watermelon inside a vagina?” My female teacher went red and got angry at his poor taste in question. She sent him to the hallway to think about his choices. The boys chuckled, and the girls just shook their heads. Did I mention this was in a catholic religion sex ed class? Honestly was surprised my teacher even answered the first question the way she did without including “after marriage” in that sentence. She normally did.”

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3. Teamwork makes the dream work (Part 1).

“I went to public school in Massachusetts in a small wealthy town with one stoplight and about 200 kids per grade. We had the standard “this is puberty and science of conception” overview in 6th grade. However, we had Sex Ed as a mandatory 6-week segment of gym class our freshman year, which I took in 1999. It was team-taught by the football coach and the school nurse. They covered everything in a great sex-positive way that emphasized safety, consent, pleasure, and positivity. It was truly great and delved into everything. They showed how to put a condom on yourself and how to put it on a partner,” shares stimilon.

“They talked about masturbation, sex toys, orgasm, how to have conversations with partners about what you were or were not comfortable with, and how to communicate about what feels good or bad. The last 20 minutes were an unstructured time for question and answer, and there was “the question box,” which was a shoe box for each class section in the cafeteria where you could anonymize your question. They would answer every single question without you as the author. Well… I was a freshman. My sister was a senior. She and all of her friends ate in the same cafeteria where the question box lived.”

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2. Teamwork (Part 2).

Stimilon continues, “They decided to stuff the box with all sorts of questions and put my class section number on them so they’d be read in my class. They ranged from easy ones like “I slipped on my bike falling on my seat and broke my hymen. Am I still a virgin?” “One of my teammates asked if he could suck my penis to see if I’m gay. I got hard. Does this mean I’m gay?” To “my parents make my siblings sleep in the basement so they can have friends over for a “key party.” Is this common?”

“To even mention every masturbatory practice or locations for ejaculation you can imagine. The funniest part was that the teachers thought all of these questions came from my one friend in the class. They totally thought this for the rest of his high school career. The real truly best part was that they took on every question and tried to give each a medically sound answer without judgment. I probably owe a lot of my positive attitudes about sex to how seriously this football coach and the school nurse took on a tough task.”

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1. That one awkward question in sex ed.

“I’m not a teacher, but instead, I was the awkward student that asked the uncomfortable question. I must have been about 12. I’m 28 now, and I live in the UK. For some reason, our whole year group received one mass sex ed class with all the form teachers (class heads?) standing awkwardly in a row at the front of the large classroom to help answer about 70 cramped children’s questions. I have no idea why this was the chosen format to educate us on the intricacies of sex. After one of the braver teachers gives her a rundown on the basics with seemingly very little rehearsal to this class, and confident male students get up to incorrectly point at the clitoris on the giant vagina projected on the board, the classroom is opened up to questions,” shares Rhydonal.

“Now, I am a cheeky chap. I figured this was my chance to ask a question. Also, hopefully enlighten the year group on correct oral sex procedures. After raising my hand, my teacher pointed to me. “I know it’s safer for girls to spit when it comes to oral sex. But is it safer for guys to spit when going down on a girl?” The teacher that’s answering awkwardly stumbles over her words, unsure how to answer such a ridiculous question. Seeing how uncomfortable this made her, I decided to step in and say something along the lines of “So a guy should spit then, yeah?” Nodding my head as I look directly at her. “I suppose.” I think was the conclusion. The other pupils and teachers stared quietly at both the teacher and me. Everyone was wondering what to make of this awkward exchange.”

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