Sex Ed Korea

I guess I just thought that sex education in Korea was nearly identical to that of the United States' school systems. Never crossed my mind. Separate boys from girls, show them pictures of people's wahoos, then let the hilarious immature jokes ensue. It wasn't until today when I INADVERTENELY (I can't stress that enough) picked up a custom-made one of these today off of a student's desk when I got a general idea of how it goes down.

Things were a little off in my typically girl-dominated class this afternoon when I noticed little bags of something-or-another in front of every student. Brushing it off as another krazy Korean kraft I went about the lesson. The students were working quite well on their "Build Greg a Sandwich" activity and one group of girls asked for help. I nonchalantly leaned on their desk dropping my hand down on one of their "crafts." It's now my gut instinct to inspect the foreign object because I just touched it. I pick it up and instantly the group of girls start laughing hysterically. "What's so funny?" I ask, closer inspecting the object. I then dropped the object on the floor upon realizing what it was.

The class had just come from their sex education class, where apparently today's lesson was "Make a Pad." Looking around the room, I see pads with hearts, pads with smileys, pads with rustic countryside scenes, you name it. By this point, everyone in the class is screaming wildly because Teacher Greg touched Yuri's pad.

I was shocked. Embarrassed. Alone.

"Not so funny," says a quiet voice from the back of the room. It's one of the four boys (in a class of 31) in the room! He's come to my rescue!

"Yes!" I say. "Not funny at all!" As I'm backing further into the corner.

"I know," responds Chal-Su. "Look at mine. I don't know either."

He then shows his, what I'm calling valiant, attempt at creating a pad. He put little effort into it compared to the females of the class. But in his defense, he has a penis. This encourages more uproar from the girls.

"Chal-Su has ugly pad!" One girl screams.

"You had to make one too? All of you?" I ask to the boys.

"Yes. We learn about cycles today."

Upon the end of the class, I clearly had a few questions for my co-teacher. The school does not separate boys and girls sex education classes. They, apparently, also make the boys do very feminine things. My school is mostly girls. Each class I have is about 30 students with only 4 or 5 boys. I'm calling unfair. It seems sort of lazy on the school's part. Will the girls have to make jock-straps next semester? Maybe they're saving a few extra bucks on the class they aren't teaching. In that case, kudos.

No wonder the teachers are concerned about the already overly-underpopulated boy students becoming too effeminate, they have them making female hygienic products.

To their credit, they're putting the men back in menstration.