Survivor Literacy

Abstinence by Protyus A. Gendher

Abstinence 
Abstinence Abstinence Abstinence 
I read this shit and none of it makes sense 
Because nobody I know is doing this 
I’m pretty sure most “girls” want to see a penis 
But in my gendered reality 
This lesson, this teacher, this culture would make a monster out of me 
For failing to be someone controlled 
Someone who didn’t roll over and do what they’re told 
Why can’t a good girl be sexually healthy? 
Every word in Sex Ed tells a story 
This would have us think that the perfect lady 
Keeps her legs closed until her wedding 
And only then is she allowed 
Because her ownership was vowed 
But for some people this isn’t even a choice 
And why give each gender a different voice? 
Boys become men when they start having sex 
And more status with each girl that comes up next 
But by virtue of my ovaries 
I’m supposed to suppress my natural biology 
Because they assigned me “girl” 
As they become more, we become less 
Their gain is at our expense 
And that’s what is taught to be natural and right 
So much for living in a time of enlightenment 
I know in times before there was a fear 
Of babies out of wedlock, the message is clear 
But this social indoctrination 
Has nothing to do with sexual education 

Or healthy bodies, relationships, and minds 
So why do they make us all waste our time 
Learning this obsolete moral code 
With only one option and only one road 
And they preach this to us as if everyone could 
Make all the right choices and be perfect and good 
But there are some people erased and ignored 
When this classroom diatribe is endured 
Consider for a moment a person like me 
Who sees a life full of possibility 
And was taught that they could go take life and grab it 
And decide what they want, and work for it, and have it 
Does it really seem like such a bad thing 
That I don’t envision children in my future setting? 
And I don’t see a man that I always concede to 
Doing first everything he needs me to? 
And marriage isn’t appealing either 
But I’ll come back to this point later 
So, what of me then, a withered-up shrew 
All alone till my balls turn blue? 
I know I still have sexual needs 
Shouldn’t I be able to fulfill these? 
And why would this make me any more bad  
Than the boys we knowingly raise to be cads? 
Besides in order for them to gain status 
Don’t they have to find a girl to give it up gratis? 
Why should sex have to be attached 
To all of this meaning being enacted 
By others 
And what of my safety and the safety of others 
Who may someday become fathers and mothers 
Shouldn’t we focus on reducing the dangers 
From having sex with friends and strangers 
So we’re all safer and better off 
Not ending our lives with an STD cough? 
And even the girl four seats down the row from me 
Who really does want to fall in love and be married 
Shouldn’t somebody tell her about 
All the choices she’s living without? 
Even if she gets married at eighteen 
And manages never to give a man entry 
Before the time appointed by god, or these classes 
Or governmental trespasses 
Shouldn’t she know that she has more alternatives 
Than to postpone motherhood though marital abstinence? 
Shouldn’t she know all of the ways 
That she can plan her life anyway? 
Now consider another unmade 
But I’m sure the religious right prefers it this way 
The boy who sits in the back of class 
With the far-too-stylish sweater and slacks 
He’s never going to have the sex that he needs 
To become a person by performing the deeds 
In this lesson on morality 
Cloaked as sexuality 
But this book says nothing of men with men 
And the teacher threatened to send 
Me to the office when I asked out loud 
Why queers have been excluded from the crowd 
And so the message that he gets to hear 
Just like me, as sexual queers 
Is that we don’t count, and won’t get to be people 
Unless we play by their rules, that’s it, it’s that simple 
And if the rules here vary from state to state 
Then why is this absolute enough to perpetuate 
The stigma against those who can’t get hitched 
Unless their lucky enough to be rich 
Or live in a state more forward than ours 
But he lives here, so to play it smart 
He keeps his mouth shut hoping no one will notice 
Or question his behaviors and motives 
This education filled with binaries 
Concerned with pomp and finery 
And so many without ID 
Erased in prescriptive words of the mighty 
Those in transition, fluid, and flux 
Who will never fit in someone else’s box 
And there’s another who sits in the corner 
Already physically distanced from others 
The words on these pages claim they never had
A chance to be a whole person to begin with 
The words written here say they’re damaged and wrecked 
In a way that makes them discarded, wretched 
And they never even had a shot 
But the teacher’s happy with it, “so what?” 
So what, if they’ve been sucking dick since they were five 
So what, if that’s one of their first memories of being alive 
It’s easier to pretend that they don’t exist 
And that everything’s fine, if we just practice abstinence. 

Interested? Go back to the beginning! Start Here