A high school game couldn’t match up to a real-life sexual encounter

Yesenia Siemens received sex education in the ninth grade at Cibola High School, a campus in Yuma near the California border. It was part of an optional health class offered as an alternative to physical education held for a semester-long, and taught every Friday.

Arguably, the class offered much more instruction than the average public school child who attends in Arizona gets. But it still only covered only the basics of safe sex and consent, focusing exclusively on heterosexual relationships, Siemens said.

Siemens recalled a specific exercise: 

“They had these little worksheets and it would be like someone comes up to you at a party and is pressuring you for sex,” she said. “What do you say? And then you would just write no. And then it would be like, come up with three ways to tell someone no, no, thank you, stop. And no, I don't want that. And then we'd read them aloud to the class and that would be it.”

But she said her health class left her unprepared to deal with real-life scenarios. 

In college, Yesenia said she was sexually assaulted. “It's a lot harder compared to just like a stranger at a party in like these scenarios that they did in health class." she said. “I wish that they had talked about how it's not going to be like someone that you don't know pressuring you. It's going to be someone that you know taking something a little too far.”

"I really wish that they had been that instead,” she said.

While Siemens said the "scary" photos of STIs and the oversimplified scenarios were "something," she argued classes should have covered “what would happen after sexual assault and what you should do and how to support (someone else) because realistically that's what people are going to have trouble with.” 

After she was assaulted, she said she didn’t know what to do; The person who assaulted her got away with it. 

“Nothing happened 'cause I didn't know how to do anything and I was too scared and overwhelmed to get help,” she said. 

Siemens said that where she was able to learn about consent in depth was from books at sex shops, she said specifically BDSM books. 

“The best place that I ever learned for consent was picking up BDSM books, not because, you know, I’m super into that or whatever, but just because they actually teach you here's how to say no," she said, and recounted some lessons. "Here's how to make a list of what you want, here's how to talk to people about it, and here's how not to feel ashamed about saying no.”

Last week's voice: Kaylee C.

A rebellious teacher made the difference in teaching safer sex

Hear their voices: Kaylee C. (she/her), Gilbert, Ariz.

LOOKOUTShelby Rae Wills (they/she)

Next week's voice: Gina Griffiths