It is common knowledge that young girls experience incredible pressure pushing them towards and pulling them away from sex. As if girls do not have a choice or vote on their sexuality. In reading 17 Lies We Need to Stop Teaching Girls About Sex by Julianne Ross, I am reminded of just how many ways young girls are influenced and pressured to meet the needs of others, whether that be their father, mother, friends, clergy, or boyfriends. It’s time we collectively begin teaching girls the truth about sex and their sexuality. The lies we teach them are not productive nor in their best interests.

I remember, as an adolescent boy, thinking that there was something wrong with me because everybody was having sex except me, or so it seemed. Thoughts in my head included thinking I was ugly, stupid, unmanly, and just generally undesirable to girls. As time went on, these thoughts became self-fulfilling prophecies; I manifested my own fears. We know that thinking you are ugly and unattractive can make you unattractive, maybe not physically, but certainly energetically and socially. In my early twenties, these inward negative thoughts began to turn into anger and, eventually, rage. What was initially anger at myself became anger and hate at girls, especially attractive ones. This defense mechanism prevented me from being hurt or rejected by girls. If I did not allow myself to be attracted to a girl, she could not reject me.

An interesting aspect that complicated matters further, I was a very popular and well-known DJ. In college, everybody knew who I was, and everywhere I went, the popular and attractive girls were three steps behind me. I even got the reputation for being somewhat of a ladies’ man. Of course, I knew this was a complete fraud, but I did nothing to alter this false reputation. All this time, I was working with the myth that girls don’t like sex and that alcohol and lies were the only way to “get” them to have sex. Here again, perception and reality were far apart because I never really “got” girls; it just looked that way.

I wonder if I was a young man today with the knowledge that not only do girls like to have sex, they may like it as much if not more than me, what my experience would have been with girls? What would my experience have been as a young man if I did not think verbally abusing and harassing girls was a natural and expected behavior? What would it be like for all boys and young men to know the truth about female sexuality, virginity, and their bodies? I recognize that this article is written about the 17 lies we need to stop teaching girls about sex, but boys often are working with the same lies!

17 Lies We Need to Stop Teaching Girls About Sex

by Julianne Ross

1. Virginity exists.

2. Hymens are a sign of virginity.

3. All women are born with vaginas.

4. The first time is going to hurt — a lot

5. If someone buys you something, you owe him or her sex.

6. Too much sex will stretch you out.

7. Women don’t think about sex very much.

8. Women don’t like casual sex.

9. Boys buy the condoms.

10. “Frigid” wives make cheating husbands.