Period positivity
Updated: Oct 29, 2020
On a mission to open up the menstruation conversation, relationships & sex education (RSE) teacher Saskia Boujo has just written This Period In My Life – a guidebook and journal full of tips, charts and practical and historical facts. Here she talks to us about untangling menstruation myths, walking around naked and how periods are actually a superpower…
ON STARTING SEX-ED CONVERSATIONS
When you talk about sex & relationships in the classroom, by naming the fact that: “Yeah, I feel uncomfortable talking about periods” you release that into the air and then you can get down to teaching. You need a strong learning agreement – a verbal contract with the students – to create a really safe environment where the conversation is respectful and open and people aren’t going to be unkind to others.
How young people respond to talking about sex & relationships topics depends on how approachable and open their trusted adults are. If the conversation has been normalised from an early age, then their response will be like anything else: they might ask what a testicle is while they’re playing Lego – at least in my house! – and that’s completely normal.
As they get older, from the middle to the top end of primary school, they naturally develop layers of awkwardness, discomfort and shame around sex-education topics, so that’s the argument for starting the talk early. Having said that, it’s never too late!
But there are ways for parents to gain confidence. It’s important to name the discomfort and say to your child: “This is an awkward conversation – I couldn’t talk to Granny about this – but let’s have a go…”
If we can start the conversation early, it’s so much easier to build on it later. There are so many layers about sex that are complex and difficult to discuss later on: what’s healthy, what we aspire to, what consensual sex is. At some point we have to answer “What is rape?” and talk about sexual assault – and we don’t want to have the sex conversation at the same time. Let’s begin with what is healthy.