Editorial

Whenever we talk about shortfalls in our education system here at SHOUT, I like to draw on my own experience in school. It was good in many ways, but like almost every schoolkid in the country, I was not taught anything about reproductive health. The breadth of problems born out of this unwillingness to talk about something so basic to the human experience would be difficult to summarise, so I won't attempt it. I'd just like to say that it caused a lot of problems. Scary amounts.

What I can share is one of the funniest stories I have in my bag of stories. I was a student in class 5. Our group of friends had collectively started to learn about how babies were made, and new knowledge of that process were smuggled in from various untrustworthy sources every day, only to be diligently distributed by the troublemakers in class. Upon disclosure to a certain specific (one which we eventually found out was true), a friend burst into an angry tirade, almost to the verge of tears, and confidently claimed that there was no way his parents could have engaged in such lowly activity.

I still laugh at this memory.