A middle school teacher from upstate New York has been suspended from her job after going a little too in-depth during a recent sex ed lesson.
Health teacher Jacqueline Hall invited a speaker from the Pride Center of the Capital Region to talk to her middle schoolers about sex in the LGBTQ community. The well-intentioned speaker came armed with handouts that included a handy list of definitions to words like “lesbian,” “transgender,” and “cisgender.”
NBD, right?
Also on the list was the word “bottom,” which the handout defined as “a person who is said to take a more submissive role during sexual interactions.”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Hmmm.
Related: “Teen Vogue” published an exhaustive guide to anal sex, and the Internet is having a tizzy
Understandably, some parents weren’t so cool with their pre-teens being taught what a “bottom” is in a gay relationship.
Sirrell Fiel, a father of one of the students, tells NBC News: “This is something my 11-year-old definitely does not need to know in health class. … I understand there’s gays, there’s straights, but I don’t need it being brought into a classroom, to where we pay our tax dollars for you to teach stuff, to my kids years before they should even know about this stuff.”
Honestly, this may be the first time we’ve ever agreed with the overzealous parents on an issue like this.
Superintendent of Schools Vincent Canini says covering LGBTQ topics is part of the District’s curriculum, but acknowledges that perhaps teaching the 11-year-olds what a “bottom” is took things a little too far.
“The District teaches gender identity and many other health topics to its students as required by the New York State Education Department,” Canini says. “There was a list of ‘Common Terms and Definitions’ in the materials distributed which contained street jargon, slang, or sexual positions which we do not believe were age appropriate to the middle school students being taught.”
Related: Gay Redditor ask “How does straight sex work?” and the replies are out of control
He adds, “All educators bear a responsibility to teach required curriculum, but to also ensure that the materials used to do so are age appropriate to the students involved.”
What do you think? Did teaching the 11-year-olds what “bottom” means go too far? Share your thoughts in the comments section…
Jb12
Since when does bottoming mean you are submissive?
jkb
Love you, boo!!! Lol
PinkoOfTheGange
receptive work better?
cleancut123
no, receptive doesnt work better either. both submissive and receptive have connotations of weakness and passivity.
Knight
Absolutely-effen-right, JB12! Some of the best bottoms I’ve ever been with are the ones who know how to take control and command the top what needs to happen. And note: that is NOT the same thing as a ‘bossy bottom’…which get obnoxious very quickly.
jkb
Yeah… not sure why either of those adults thought that was a good idea, especially without parental consent
Xzamilloh
Yeah, no 11 year old needs to know about receptive roles during sex, gay or straight. Or those other things under the LGBTQ umbrella that are just a variation of gay and straight but make the room smell worse.
mhoffman953
I would’ve suspended this teacher too
MaxTaste
I have a 10-year-old who will be turning 11 very soon. I would have objected to this lesson, too. This was irresponsible and the teacher deserves to be suspended for demonstrating poor judgment.
Green4Clover
So it’s okay to learn about straight intercourse but it’s not okay to learn about gay intercourse? Very homophobic. Americans are too uptight. If a child is old enough to ask, then they are old enought to get an honest (maybe edited down) answer.
crowebobby
I doubt very much that any of the students asked what “bottoming” is.
Xzamilloh
No one’s teaching 11 year olds about straight intercourse in school. And if the kid is old enough to ask, the PARENTS should be having this conversation with them, not the school. Sex Ed is when they get older. And no one asked in this case, it was brought up
Brian
I learned about straight intercourse in a mandatory class in 5th grade. I was 10, and my classmates were all 10 or 11.
This story is about two classrooms – 7th grade (typically, ages 12-13) and 10th grade (typically, ages 15-16). Xzamilloh, I’m not sure how you can say that sex ed should begin in 8th grade at the earliest. That’s not how the school system in New York State works. In fact, most states begin before 8th grade.
Knight
How dare you sexually repressed, conservative Trump supporters infringe on this instructor’s right to educate children on bottoming! 11-year-olds are going to bottom whether we like it or not! It’s much better if they know how to douche, prep, wax and relax their sphincters from professional instructors as opposed to learning it on the street! In the name of Hillary, what has gotten into you social regressives?
scooterdie
Douche?? No thanks. And a tight sphincter rocks my world. /s
Brody
Dude, you just won Comment of the Week.
Knight
Scooter for us “big boys”, a tight sphincter means “how about I just suck you off?” My “worry” is whether or not the guy is going to let me top him once the zipper comes down and the initial euphoria wears off…not whether or not he has a “tight sphincter”.
Brody – thought you’d appreciate it. Wondering why the usual cackling hens haven’t jumped on me yet for it.
Brody
This “progressive” teacher is the very reason why we’re regularly being accused of pedophilia and “recruiting” youths into our “lifestyle.”
Way to go, lady. Way to go.
Xzamilloh
Unclutch your pearls. We were being regularly accused of pedophilia and “recruiting” long before ONE freaking teacher came along, or have you never seen the propaganda ads that ran in the 50s about homosexual men being pedophiles and Anita Bryant’s shoveling hot steaming crap from her pie-friendly face about us recruiting kids into “the lifestyle.” I’m so tired of you acting like “progressive” this or “progressive” that is why XYZ. I guarantee the majority of homophobes who think we’re all pedophiles have never even heard of this and STILL think it. So give it a rest with your faux outrage
CJones01
Proposed general guideline for sex ed. in schools:
5-year old sex ed.: Daddy and mommy have a special hug (by parents).
7-8-year old sex ed.: Penis-vagina-sperm-egg.
10-12-year old sex ed.: Puberty, gender/sexuality spectrum, maybe types of sex but in general.
14-16-year old sex ed.: Types of sex in a bit more depth, consent, STIs and protection, porn is not sex.
Mack
I have to agree with you on this. I do believe the teacher went too far with 11 year old. While many 11+ are “experimenting”, that’s something else. I do believe that schools should have a comprehensive sex education class for those old enough to realize what they’re talking about (14-16 year old). This shouldn’t be left to the parents because too much “real” information gets left out.
cdizz
If we read the article carefully, we’ll notice it was the person from the LGBTQ Center that brought the material. The teacher may have trusted the speaker to have appropriate materials. While the information about bottoming is not appropriate, it’s certainly not fully the teacher’s fault that the term was on the list. I think this may be a case of “someone has to pay,” which is unfortunate.
Brian
It certainly is the teacher’s fault that she didn’t review the materials and realize that they weren’t appropriate for her students.
Knight
^ A+ score for Brian
Brian
What was “the information about bottoming”? It was less than one sentence! You aren’t really understanding this story.
cancorv
Thank you cdizz. The ire oozed in reader comments on this site often highlight poor comprehension skills.
The opening sentence says the teacher went a little too in-depth – there’s bound to be a pun in there somewhere.
The second paragraph says that the guest speaker came armed with hand-outs – there’s bound to be a bottom in there somewhere.
Creamsicle
I remember learning about you a lot of the mechanical specifics of hetero intercourse when I was 11. My school district had sex ed multiple times to accommodate for students moving in or leaving since we had a lot of military kids and kinds whose parents were doing grad school in the area. We had pre planned days in 5th, 8th, and 10th/11th grade, with waivers available for students whose parents wanted them to remain uninformed, although only the kids with mental disabilities were ever kept out of them.
We were encouraged to ask questions without judgement, and several students asked questions about masturbation, gay sex, and gay relationships, although i was too afraid of outing myself to ask anything at all. We asked uncomfortable questions of teachers and speakers alike. Some of the speakers had clear agendas like the Christian mother of a student and pastor who talked about abstinence. One speaker was a gay man who had been raped and forcibly infected with HIV. That was actually kind of neat since he mentioned that part of the rapist’s sentence maintained that if any of their victims died during their incarceration that their sentence would be altered to lifelong imprisonment for murder.
Creamsicle
I guess I forgot to get around to my point with that post.
The point that I was trying to make is that this handout with definitions is not much more awkward or inappropriate than what students may want to ask the speaker. Having it mentioned on paper could be seen as an invitation to discuss the specifics of gay sex for those kids in the class who desperately want to know why they find themselves wanting to “be the girl,” when they have crushes. If we normalize these things while the kids are young then maybe they won’t be as prone to bullying the quiet gay kid in the class who just wants to get by and get the hell out after high school.
Artiewhitefox
People are not learning how to war one with another. People are not in contention with one another. People are getting along one with another. That is a good thing. Why be against it?
NateOcean
Unless the bottoming discussion involved an in-class demonstration, then what’s the problem.
Brian
It wasn’t a discussion. At all.
The parent said that including any LGBT information is the same thing as actual pornography. And somehow, readers of this gay blog are agreeing with him.
jorgecruz
I am not a prude but I don’t think sex acts should be taught in a health class other than to educate students on ways to prevent diseases, injuries and unwanted pregnancies. I can’t understand any reason why students need to find out about different variations of having intercourse in between math and lunch.
JamJewel
I wonder what reactions would have been if the definition had been “How women preserve their virginity!”
dgsea06
Oh! Read Shakespeare! Was it Midsummers Night Dream? Where the guy with a donkey’s head was named “Bottom”? And did he not get a man’s head back?
Either the puns flow from Shakespeare or the puns flow from Shakespeare, ya cannot have it both ways, except ya can! Cole Porter’s Baby, if I’m the bottom, youre the Top! Sort of like The Pants on a Roxy Usher.
The young people do not need nor want this, they already know!
Foolish waste of class time.
wld8hrt
Thank you creamsicle! This country is too uptight and needs to realize that education and being accepting of ones self is healthy and leads to a more happy life.
irbaboon
better they should learn it at school than on the streets
kartik8200
Wish Promo Code Free Shipping, Discount Code Wish Free Shipping
dustychiffon
“Mom, what’s a Rosebud Bottom?”
Knight
HAH! I kinda knew what you meant, but had to look it up myself to verify. When I was “straight” we used to call it “ass tulips” (as in Ass, two lips).
multitasker
At eleven years old we had easy access to porn magazines, told horrid sexual jokes, and were experimenting with playing Truth or Dare and sucking each others’ dicks—everybody, including all the guys who later considered themselves straight. What’s more, half the kids in 5th grade in the USA have already started puberty and nearly all have masturbated. Sexual education should address all the issues they’re confronting or will confront within the next few years of their lives. It also helps explains messages in tv programs they’re already watching.
Bottom is a pretty basic term, not really fleeting jargon. I think it completely appropriate to give kids already learning crass terminology and experimenting on their own the language tools to intelligently consider and discuss sex and sexual roles.
Further, many kids at age eleven are already confronted with questions and perhaps confusion regarding emotional and sexual attractions (are we bffs or more?); sexual roles (am I a top/bottom/versatile?) and activity desires (penetration or no?); and, not least of all, gender identity (am I cisgender or transgender, intersex, gender fluid, gender nonconformative (perhaps femme male or tomboy, for example, or crossdresser). They want to understand their family members’ and friends’ lives, too.
Eleven is plenty old enough. Tweens are sexual beings, though most often hide it from adults and often each other. Just think about WHY they hide it. They’re taught the subject is taboo and inappropriate, which only leads them to feel that they are freaks when in fact all that comes with puberty is normal, including trying to figure out what’s right for themselves and equip themselves with judgment-free language.