00:00My sister told me that if you masturbated, your body would think that you're pregnant and you would start gaining
00:08weight and you would start lactating. It scared the crap out of me.
00:13I thought babies came from birth control pills. The blue pills were for making boys and then the white for
00:19girls.
00:19When I was a kid, I thought that you grew out of your nipples. And I thought it all because
00:25of Barbie dolls. Because Barbie dolls had boobs, but they didn't have nipples. So I'm like, oh, when you get
00:32boobs, your nipples just go away and they look really cool.
00:36I really did believe that babies came from the forest because my parents told me so. And you believe what
00:43your parents tell you.
00:44When I was younger, I definitely thought that you can get pregnant from dancing. I just knew I was pregnant.
00:48I just knew I had to be pregnant. There was no way I was not pregnant. I shouldn't have been
00:54up on no boys like that.
00:55One cousin, his name was Wilton. He tried to convince us if you're with a girl and you have any
01:01doubts about whether or not she has an STD, what you might do is you stick your finger in your
01:07ear and you fill it up with some earwax.
01:09And then you touch your vagina with it and she recoils like she was shocked, like with some electrical shock.
01:15She's got an STD.
01:16My mom was very astute and wanted to be honest with me and straightforward at a young age. She asked
01:21me, like, do you understand what I said? And I'm like, yeah, totally. The man pees in her butt and
01:27she gets pregnant.
01:30I think I got the actual, like, concrete, I get what sex is from probably like watching porn for the
01:38first time because until then I really didn't know how it worked. I didn't know that like a man's penis
01:46grew or I didn't know any of that. I didn't get it.
01:49I think getting your sexual education from porn is bad because that's not actually what sex looks like. That's what
01:54performative sex looks like.
01:55My mom was always a super, super free spirit. Both of my parents are and she taught me everything, things
02:03I didn't know. For example, I knew about masturbation and female orgasm a little bit too early.
02:09I really learned about sex like the formal way in school. But even then they would show us like pictures
02:16of like diseased vaginas and penises. I'm just like, oh my God, I'm never going to do this in life.
02:21No way. We had no sexual education classes in school. In Nigeria, it's like a 41% literacy rate among
02:31women and 95% of people are religious. So there was just no valuable information being passed around. So we
02:40literally had to learn from the streets.
02:42I have a nine-year-old daughter, Della, and my seven-year-old son, Van. And they both know about
02:48sex. They know how it happens, the chemical process. They know what happens to an egg, how it's fertilized. They've
02:54seen it.
02:54And plus also I have a video of their childbirth. So there's no illusions in their world.
03:00In my sex education, I didn't learn anything about the pleasure perspective of it. And also since it was so
03:08gendered in the traditional forms of gender, it was not inclusive for people who are not heterosexual, people who didn't
03:18identify with these very strict views of gender.
03:23I had a few classmates that were gay or lesbian, and they thought the sex education was funny just because
03:30they knew it didn't really pertain to them.
03:32I remember in high school, I had a few friends who were gay. We had a day where we could
03:39submit anonymous questions.
03:41And one of my classmates, he submitted a question that said, why don't we learn about gay sex in this
03:47class?
03:47And I remember our teacher had, like, very weak response to it. Yes, well, it's not really a part of
03:57our curriculum, and maybe that is something we should investigate.
04:00But we never actually learned about it. That's definitely very disheartening.
04:06And it did lead them out of the conversation.
04:08Being in a family of color, a black family, I feel like conversations like that are a bit taboo.
04:13Like, we're not as open to having these conversations. Like, to this day, I don't think I've actually had a
04:19conversation with my parents ever about me having sex.
04:22It was just like, one day, I'm 17, 18 in college, and my mom was just like, be safe. I'm
04:28like, be safe. Am I going to get shot? I don't know what you're talking about.
04:31I started this website specifically for people of color, but not only for people of color.
04:36And I wanted it to be a space to talk about it, as well as learn, and to speak honestly,
04:43right?
04:43So not just speak from a space of science or a space of fear, right?
04:47But also give people an opportunity to talk about things they've learned, about mistakes they've made, about times that they've
04:54had the greatest sex of their life.
04:56I think that technology helps these conversations, because if you are in a school, or if you have parents that
05:03are not going to educate you the way that you need to be educated, then you can look it up
05:10online.
05:11And for the most part, I think that there are really good resources online that will give you accurate information.
05:17Be sure to find reputable sources, like here at Refinery29.
05:21Regardless of what you're saying or not saying to people or to the kids, the internet is out there.
05:26And if you don't teach your kids or teach people around you, you allow society and the media to teach
05:32them.
05:33And then that's dangerous.
05:35Gather as much information as you can. There's a ton of resources out there.
05:39If you're young and you have questions about sexuality, I recommend you call my cousin Wilton.
05:46Always remember that your questions are valid and encourage people to have conversations.
05:51It could be someone in your family or in your friend group who's older, or it could be websites such
05:57as mine, All the Fucks,
05:58where you can ask and read other people's situations and stories and learn from their learned experiences, mistakes, and great
06:05times.
06:06Bye guys! Thanks for watching!
