The class of Monte del Sol Charter School students watched and listened intently as senior Emma Campbell, with the help of a visual aid, demonstrated how to use a condom.
The 18-year-old is one of 10 teens trained by the local Planned Parenthood to give presentations on sexuality to their peers.
"We're trying to normalize sex," said Denise Jennings, Planned Parenthood in Santa Fe health educator, who trains the students and is present when they visit the schools.
"We know kids don't always go to adults to discuss sex," she said. "They will go online or to friends who may not always have the most accurate information."
Campbell, who has been with the Planned Parenthood Peer Education Program since it started in February of 2010, said it's important for peer educators to "be there" for their fellow teens. "Sex is a really hard topic for us to talk about," she said, "especially with adults or parents."
Confident and composed, she told the Monte del Sol students about the five circles of sexuality: sensuality, intimacy, sexual identity, sexual health and reproduction, and sexualization (in the Planned Parenthood parlance, using sex to manipulate others).
The students responded with comments as well as questions about IUDs (intrauterine devices), female condoms and the difference between withholding sex from your partner and having a lower sex drive than your partner.
"We're taking it more seriously because it's one of us talking," 12th-grader Leah Tatom said of the class. "It'd be pretty weird if John was talking about this to us."
John is John Przyborowski, the school's health teacher. He said he prefers to have Planned Parenthood provide the program because, "they are the experts and they have props."
"It's great having a student do this because there's less pressure on the other students," he added. "It doesn't feel patronizing or like lecturing. I think they listen better."
Afterward, Jennings gave Campbell some one-on-one constructive criticism. She earned high marks for her confidence and for connecting to the students in class, often turning the conversation back to them so they could offer their thoughts and questions on the matter. But Jennings did note that she got off-track when it came to discussing various birth-control options.
Most of the young people in the program give their presentations at schools they attend. During a Thursday night training session at the Planned Parenthood office in Santa Fe, eight of the 10 participants (the other two, both boys, were absent) ran through a series of questions written by anonymous teens.
Jennings urged the students to think about where the questions were coming from — was the source testing the educator, simply proposing a jokey query, or seriously concerned about the matter at hand? Jennings wants her students to answer with fact, not opinion.
Are condoms 98 percent effective? One of the teens said if used correctly and consistently, the answer is yes. Otherwise, the rate drops to about 85 percent. (Jennings urged them to reiterate that abstinence is the only 100 percent effective method of preventing pregnancy.)
When is it the right time to have sex? Ariana Maestas, a Santa Fe High School sophomore, took that query and calmly responded that you need to be emotionally and physically prepared to accept the consequences and accept responsibility for your act.
Among the other questions: Does smoking pot make your baby smarter? (No.) Can you get pregnant if you don't have intercourse? (Yes.) How can you get a sexually transmitted infection? (From vaginal, anal or oral sex, shared needles and mother-to-child transmission.)
Interestingly, many of the program participants acknowledged that they did not know much about sex until they joined the peer program. One said she's now answering questions from her stepmother at home on the topic.
Santa Fe High School sophomore Delaney Covelli — who still remembers a "creepy grandma" type giving her a sex-education lesson when she was in the sixth grade — said teens are more likely to listen to someone who is going through the same emotions, challenges and problems as they are.
Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.
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