Ufirsts. firsts.
The Ubyssey’s 2025 sex issue
1.
THE UBYSSEY
Opinion
Izen opinion@ubyssey.ca
Humour
Elita Menezes humour@ubyssey.ca
Sports + Rec Editor Lauren Kasowski sports@ubyssey.ca Science Editor Gloria Klein science@ubyssey.ca
Visuals Editor Emilīja V Harrison visuals@ubyssey.ca
Photo Editor Saumya Kamra photo@ubyssey.ca
Business Manager Douglas Baird business@ubyssey.ca
Account Manager Scott Atkinson advertising@ubyssey.ca Web Developer Sam Low samuellow@ubyssey.ca
Web Developer Nishim Singhi nishimsinghi@ubyssey.ca
President Ferdinand Rother president@ubyssey.ca
Distribution Manager Evie Hamilton distribution@ubyssey.ca
Abbie Lee, Adriel Yusgiantoro, Annaliese Gumboc, Ayla Cilliers, Bernice Wong, Caleb Peterson, Corwin Davidson, Guntas Kaur, Himanaya Bajaj, Isabella Ma, Ishaan Choudhury, Joyce Park, Julian Forst, Katja RadovicJonsson, Kyla Flynn, Luiza Teixeira, Maia Cesario, Marie Erikson, Micah Sébastien Zhang, Mrinali Ghosh, Navya Chadha, Nikhail Thakker, Olivia Vos, Rhea Krishna, Sam Low, Shubhreet Dadrao, Sidney Shaw, Sofia Campanholo, Sophia Russo, Sophia Samilski, Stella Griffin, Thea Turner, Tiana Khandelwal, Vicky Nguyen, Zoe Wagner
We know that figuring out what to do in love and sex doesn’t always come naturally.
Sitting through a comically bad first kiss, typing “am i gay?” into the Google search bar, fumbling through a messy makeout session in the backseat of a car — life is rarely perfect on the first go, but with every experience, we learn more about ourselves.
Firsts aren’t just about your first time having sex — they’re also your first crushes, learning what sex is and what gives you pleasure or realizing that you don’t want to have sex at all.
Everyone eventually goes through their own types of firsts, and in this year's sex issue, we tried to capture those voices. Writers recalled excruciating conversations with their parents about sex, learning about sex through iconicnfamous 2000s shows and experimenting with kinks. Other pieces dive into what gender euphoria during sex can look like and whether or not Queer students feel supported by their sexual education.
No matter what your firsts have looked like, there’s something in this issue for you. U
3.
Aisha Chaudhry, Elena Massing & Gloria Klein
Photos & design
Saumya Kamra
Emilija V Harrison
Models
Elizabeth Martin
Hana Kovar
Joshua Bransford
Joshua Peng
Shayel Fisher
Sophia Rodgers
Tiana Khandelwal
Sex
As a child, there was nothing more sacred than my uninterrupted, unsupervised computer time. I’d sit criss-cross applesauce on the carpeted floor of my bedroom, fingers eagerly poised over the keyboard of my mom’s overheating MacBook Pro, and lose myself on the internet for hours.
Many of my early experiences on the internet align with what would be expected of a child. I spent the majority of my time bouncing back and forth between playing children’s games and watching YouTube videos.
While my time spent on the computer brought me many valuable skills and treasured memories, there was one key measure my parents failed to put in place: they gave me little to no restrictions.
And so, like many others who have been in the same position, I was exposed to sexual content at an extremely young age.
One of my earliest memories using the internet was creating my Club Penguin account on my fifth
birthday. My parents were blissfully unaware of the fact that a year or so later, I’d end up seeing porn for the first time.
From what I remember, I was watching a YouTube video where a girl made a joke about some sort of website. Being a young child curious about anything and everything, I paused the video, typed the URL into the browser’s search bar, and hit ‘enter.’
You’d never guess what appeared on my screen.
I was so young that I hadn’t been through sex ed in school yet. I’m not even sure if I knew sex existed. All I knew was that I was seeing something I was not supposed to. I was at least old enough to understand that nudity was something meant to be kept private.
Naturally, this led to even more curiosity.
That encounter with online sexual content was only the first of many that would follow. While it wasn’t necessarily something that
I actively seeked out, it continued to confront me, even in the corners of the internet that should have been the farthest you could possibly get from a porn website.
Animal Jam, a children’s game where users get to play as a wide variety of animals, inspired many people to create YouTube videos about the game — one specific kind I had the displeasure of stumbling across were “mating” videos, which were essentially porn made through the limits of safety chat filters and using the ‘jumping’ action.
In elementary school, my friends would constantly say that I was the more ‘mature’ one. Unbeknownst to them, my ‘maturity’ was really the result of my unsupervised internet access and my prolonged exposure to not just sexual content, but violence and other dark topics too.
It took years of me already knowing extensive details about sex for it to start to become a topic of conversation among my class-
mates. Being aware of porn’s existence only seemed to emerge in grade 5. Boys began to talk about it as if they were trying to get used to the way the single syllable rolled off their tongues, and how it tasted like something that could give them power.
In my grade 7 class, I vividly remember one of those same boys proudly declaring that his favourite number was 69. I fought back a smirk, secretly thrilled that I had understood the joke while the rest of my female classmates remained oblivious.
Knowledge about sex had become a form of capital within the walls of the classroom. After years of frequently feeling like an outsider in other social settings, I finally possessed something that others didn’t have access to.
Then high school started, and it suddenly seemed as if everyone knew everything there was to know about sex. After a childhood spent almost exclusively encountering sex on the internet, it was
now all around me in the real world.
And all I wanted to do was pretend that it didn’t exist.
My exposure to sex at such a young age left me viewing it as something that was entirely separate from my actual life and as something which belonged on the internet. Once the possibility emerged of it actually entering my life, I felt as if an invisible barrier had been crossed.
It brings me some comfort knowing there are many others out there who have had similar experiences to me. In the future, I will continue to work towards accepting that sex holds a different value on the internet and in real life.
When I look back on my childhood years spent online, I will try to focus on the good that came out of them, including the fact that the internet is what inspired me to be a writer.
Because yes, I read Wattpad too. U
Klein
Design by Mahin E Alam
This issue answers a lot of burning-hot sex questions, but what about the hottest one of all: Am I normal?
Unfortunately, I can’t answer that for you (I am but a lowly science editor) but I can show you how you sexually stack up to your peers. Or maybe, how your peers stack up to you, you little slice!
This year’s survey — with 145 respondents — included questions about initial experiences around sex and sex ed, current sex behaviour and what good sex means to you.
Peruse, enjoy and don’t forget to wear protection. U
▼ What age did you have sex for the first time?
▲ If you could describe the first time you had sex in one word, what would it be?
▶ How long had you known your last sexual partner prior to having sex with them?
◀ What is your biggest concern during sex?
Words & data by Gloria
▲ Do it squirt?
▶ What were your sources of sexual education prior to university?
▶ What does good sex mean to you?
◀ How often do you generally orgasm during partnered sex, particularly over the last six months?
▲ If you were to describe your sexual education in one word, what would it be?
Words by Vicky Nguyen
In a world where every online search can yield thousands of results, it can be challenging to access accurate and easy-to-understand health care information. This is a problem for sexual health in particular, as it is often coupled with stigma and can create barriers for individuals receiving the medical attention, counselling and support they need.
The BC Centre for Vulvar Health’s (BCCVH) Instagram account, @hello.vulv a, is dedicated to changing this by offering interactive content about vulvar and vaginal health, sexual dysfunction and evidence-based resources to support individuals in need.
“We really want to empower patients to really be the leader in their own health care for their vulva[r] and vaginal health,” said Dr. Kaitlyn Goldsmith, a UBC psychology lecturer, clinical psychologist at BCCVH and manager of @hello.vulva
“A really big part of that is having patients have access to really good information and to increase their knowledge in the area, so that they know the questions to ask … What better way to do this than by using social media and putting our voices out there?”
Together with her colleagues at BCCVH, Goldsmith launched @hello.vulva in September, 2021.
As of January, 2025, the account has garnered more than 15,500 followers. According to Goldsmith, part of this success was creating eye-catching content that would open discussion around the audience's experiences.
“We really wanted to find a way to make the content engaging and fun and sometimes a little bit cheeky, so that we could really engage an audience and get a lot of shares,” said Goldsmith.
Providing the best information possible was also important to Goldsmith and her team while creating @hello.vulva , which is why they ensure content is created by health care professionals including gynecologists, psychologists and psychotherapists.
“Our content is created by
content showing genitals risks being flagged and removed, preventing educational content from being viewed. Usually @hello. vulva portrays vulvas in their full glory but sometimes uses symbols or more abstract renditions of vulvas.
Goldsmith also expressed frustration with double standards of what does and doesn’t get censored on social media.
“It's really baffling to see that contrast where women's bodies can be so sexualized and sexually objectified, and that is fine with Instagram. But then, [we’ve had] diagrams or drawings of vulvas … removed from our page which is just really indicative of how women's bodies are portrayed in the media.”
Lack of funding for women’s health research also poses difficulties in understanding more about sexual health and therefore, being able to educate people about them. A study found that in nearly three-quarters of the cases where a disease affects mainly one gender, the funding patterns heavily favour males.
This issue was highlighted by @hello.vulva , as one of its most shared posts according to Goldsmith was a meme with Sleeping Beauty saying, “Wake me up when women's health issues receive as much funding and attention as men's.”
“It was cool to see that one shared so much because it really showed how on the same page everybody is [with] wanting more research funds and dedicated funds for women's health,” said Goldsmith.
experts in the field … which is how we really ensure that it's portraying the correct information … that we can really stand behind as professionals.”
The account features a blend of educational resources that address sexual health issues and dispel myths, destigmatize
sexuality and bodies and discuss misconceptions, like that sex is supposed to be painful for people with vulvas or orgasms should be reached through penetration alone.
“The World Health Organization recognizes sexual health as an integral component of overall health and wellbeing, and it's time that we have these conversations … and really empower people with good information,” said Goldsmith. “What makes it challenging on social media is some of the censorship.”
For people who want to create similar accounts, Goldsmith advised to “get really clear on your mission and what you're trying to do … and really stick with it,” as the process of gaining a sizable audience can be long, given instability and censorship on social media platforms.
Words like “vulva” and “sex” get muted by the algorithm and
“The more accounts that we have that are on a similar mission and amplifying each other, [the more] we can make change and push for more of this information being available.” U
Forget about the exact time of day — I don’t even remember the month or year of my initiation into the world of sensuality.
This was a precarious realm, dangerously forbidden but easily accessible. For an eight- or nineyear-old who had only ever talked about a vagina or vulva in the context of menstruation, anything with even the most subtle suggestion of sexuality was forbidden. Secretive, undercover, hush-hush.
I’m not so shallow as to subscribe to the idea that sex can only be associated with clinically accurate (or often, inaccurate) terminologies for human genitalia. But what I’m trying to say is, that is exactly how I processed the grown-up talk — the “you are not dying, you just got your period” talk, the “nice girls don’t say the s-word aloud” talk, the “sex only after marriage to a nice husband” talk and the “bedroom” talk.
My own body was morphing into a foreigner that felt utterly unwelcome in most realms, not just when it came to sexuality. I was tempted to internalize the ridiculousness of believing the premature emergence of my breasts at eight years old messed up my brain and body to the extent that my sexuality became synonymous
to a cracked window distorting every single one of the desires I embodied.
Feeling good at the thought of being tied up? Early puberty fucked me up.
Feeling excited about the thought of being held captive by a non-Edwardian vampire? Hormones and pop culture conspiring against me.
Finding beauty in intricate rope work decorating breasts? My premature chest is definitely preparing me for a tour around Hell.
As I was devouring a highly forbidden — and frankly, poorly written — story from Kindle Unlimited, I stumbled upon a scene where the main character is pursued by two werewolves in a deep, dark forest. When they catch her, wicked (but very, very sexy) things happen (I’ll leave out the details, but I encourage creativity — picture clothes torn by bare hands, three people having the time of their lives and activities that would put any high-intensity interval training gym session to shame).
These wicked things, irrespective of the quality of their execution, re-ignited those sullying, shameful and secretive feelings that I had promised to bury under 10,000 different layers of dirt, earth and muted confessions.
Words by Aditi Mankar
Or maybe I didn’t want to talk about that scene — an example of primal play, I now know — because the story was poorly-written. Perhaps I confused sexual embarrassment for literary embarrassment. I don’t recall exactly, and the memory keeps losing relevance because burying and digging up and re-burying and re-digging up these things grows tiring.
So now I lay these moments on my dormitory bookshelves, allowing them to permeate every special interests rant and Ubyssey article that perhaps I will refrain from sending to my family WhatsApp group chat.
Shame is a language I mastered too well — I felt it when I was harshly berated for knowing a little too much for my age (at least according to prissy adults), mocked at school for being the Moral Defender of Queer People on the Internet and when I accidentally flashed my mother a sexually explicit (and in hindsight, quite comical) visual from my GL (girl love) manga (which makes for an excellent memory to recount to friends at sleepovers).
I felt like the only one awake in a sexual dystopia. Queerness had
always been my mother tongue, but this shame had colonized my mind and tongue for long enough that I had to start learning her from scratch, all on my own.
Much of the online realm of Tumblr, AO3, Wattpad and the grander corpus of absolutely toe-curling, sheet-clenching and gasp-inducing smut resembled the utopia I had carefully hidden away from the prying, judgemental eyes and ways of the people in my life.
The unordinary and the non-normative was safely performable in this world.
I do not recall a singular moment, the one incident, the ultimate story of how I discovered kinks and how I got into the things I got into.
Maybe it was one of those terribly written kink play scenes in Monster’s Bride. Perhaps kink embodied the thrilling possibility of being desired in a non-normative way that I found tempting. Perhaps it proved to be a site to unpack my familial and sexual trauma without any social consequences, judgement from my parents or carceral time. Or maybe even just the fantasy of kink play made me feel so, so sexy, I morphed into this vixen who would put one stiletto-heeled foot
on a man’s neck.
Or perhaps the other kinksters I found online didn’t make me feel like a sexual deviant with a predilection for the bad and the bizarre. And that was such a relieving revelation.
But it wasn’t just one single person, one single moment or one single desire — there wasn’t a remarkable first time or remarkable anything really. The mechanics of kink made me think of all the ways we can experience pleasure. I could say kink culture called out to me, called out to the Queerness I embody and, in return, I found solace in the subversive nature of this existence.
The remaining contradictions in my head settled down when I allowed characters in my stories to enact scenes that would have otherwise drawn an appalled and defensive reaction from me had they lacked the critical elements of fantasy and affirmative consent.
I might as well be a patchwork doll made of non-normative desires, misplaced moralities and shameless pursuits of pleasure, embodying every single one of those nightmarish characteristics my parents feared their child to possess. U
Words by Olivia Vos
This article mentions eating disorders and self-harm.
What is the right way to lose your virginity?
For some people, it’s with a high school boyfriend in the back of his Honda Civic. For others, it’s with a stranger you met in college, or even on your wedding night with your new spouse.
Regardless of what you believe the ‘right’ way to have sex for the first time is, there is a particular form of media that thinks they’ve got it down: teen drama shows. I’m talking Gossip Girl, Glee and One Tree Hill, the type of shows with 40-minute episodes and plots you need a chart to remember. While all of these shows include at least one character losing their virginity, the difference between them is how having sex for the first time is portrayed.
Starting in 2007, Gossip Girl is a classic. From cheating scandals to drug dealing, Gossip Girl has all of the ingredients to craft a perfect storm, one where high schoolers act more like 20-somethings and money can’t buy happiness. Two characters lose their virginities in the show: the fabulous Blair who craves the perfect life, and Jenny, the rebellious teen.
Jenny and Blair have shockingly similar experiences when it comes to losing their virginity — they are both waiting for the ‘perfect guy’ and to have an unforgettable experience. Ultimately, they both have sex for the first time drunk with someone they don’t really care about (ironically, with the same guy). Despite the experience of actually having sex going okay, they both regret their choices afterward — Jenny leaves town and Blair ends things with her boyfriend. Losing their virginities meant facing consequences and losing something else in their lives.
Everyone’s all-time favorite musical drama show, Glee, followed in 2009. The show follows the story of a high school’s glee club where cheerleaders, football players, nerds and outcasts all come together in musical harmony.
In the episode “The First Time,” two couples have sex for the first time — Rachel and Finn in parallel with Kurt and Blaine. Following a performance of West Side Story, the couples each face their own issues before having sex: Rachel wants to use the
experience to further her acting career and Blaine wants to get it over with in the back seat of a cab. Their other halves refuse, as they want their first times to feel special. After some teary-eyed apologies, they complete the act while “One Hand, One Heart” plays in the background. Rachel even notes to Finn she is going to “give [him] something no one else can ever get” before they kiss in front of a fireplace.
Both shows focus mainly on expectations surrounding virginity. Blair, Jenny, Blaine, Kurt, Rachel and Finn are all looking for that ‘perfect night’ where they make love surrounded by candles with the person they want to marry one day. In Glee, the characters get this experience, but Blair and Jenny unfortunately do not. What makes or breaks their first times is who it is with, and when Jenny and Blair do it with someone they aren’t in love with, their experiences are essentially ruined.
This emphasis on expectations is harmful to young people who are nervous about having sex for the first time. It teaches that if you don’t find that ‘perfect person,’ you shouldn’t have sex as it will be an unpleasant experience, which doesn’t have to be the case.
As we get further into the 2000s, shows have begun to change how they display losing your virginity. The show Sex Education premiered in 2019, and as the title suggests, it is a lot more educational in regards to teen sex. The main character, Otis, struggles with having sex due to trauma from his childhood. Despite his mother being a sex therapist, he faces panic attacks when attempting to be intimate although it is something he wants to do. Otis loses his virginity with popular girl Ruby while he is drunk and wakes up not fully remembering the experience or being able to find the condom. Regardless of his embarrassment, Otis takes Ruby to buy the morning-after pill and they have a discussion about the encounter, ending with them both feeling at ease.
In contrast to Gossip Girl, Otis’s experience losing his virginity to someone he isn’t in a relationship with doesn’t end in tears and regret. Instead, he
accepts the situation as it is and tries his best to follow what he knows to be the right way to deal with Ruby’s potential pregnancy. It may not have been the way Otis wanted to lose his virginity, but it shows viewers that even if you make a ‘mistake,’ there are ways to cope with those feelings and still have it be a positive experience, despite any expectations possibly being missed.
Finally, the 2022 show Heartstopper follows the story of Nick and Charlie, two high school students who fall in love and navigate their relationship. Charlie is hesitant to have sex with Nick for the first time due to negative feelings about his body caused by self-harm and an eating disorder. He explains this to Nick, and after talking through some of Charlie’s insecurities, the boys share a romantic evening with each other, culminating in Charlie trusting Nick enough to fully open up to him. They then lose their virginities to each other in Nick’s bedroom. This scene is the final one of season three, and although the next season isn’t out yet, it is safe to assume the interaction was well received by both of them.
Both Heartstopper and Sex Education show realistic and relevant issues that teens face and how that can interact with sex and virginity. As opposed to the dramatics of Glee and Gossip Girl, these characters are more concerned with making each other feel comfortable and practicing safe sex rather than having ‘the perfect night.’ The couples face obstacles, but they work through them, rather than fighting about how the other feels.
All in all, I do think all these shows have their benefits. If someone wants to have that perfect evening with their partner, there is nothing wrong with that. But I do think that for TV, it is more important to convey realistic expectations rather than one’s greatest fantasy. TV has a strong influence on viewers, and when your favorite character shows it’s okay to be awkward or say the wrong thing, it is evident that what truly matters is feeling safe and comfortable. After all, there is no ‘right way’ to lose your virginity, just the right way for you. U
Words by Aisha Chaudhry & Elena Massing
Rory Sexton was living in Texas when she first received any form of sexual education — if you could even call it that.
She remembers having two days of lessons entirely about HIV in grade 4, but students only learned that a person could contract it by being in contact with the blood of someone who was infected. It wasn’t until moving to Massachusetts that she received a more in-depth education that actually talked about sex, let alone the concepts of gender identity and sexual orientation.
“[My sexual education] was so wonderfully well-rounded,” she said. “My area, Boston, is one of the most Democratic cities in America. So I feel like I kind of lucked out in that way, because there was definitely a big community of acceptance [and] I had openly Queer teachers.”
“It covered all the bases, like a lot of discussion about the Queer community, a lot of discussion about sex versus gender … and how to be respectful to everyone.”
Now a fourth-year biology student at UBC, talking to people who grew up in other areas has shown Sexton that people come into university with very different understandings of sex. Unfortunately, her positive experience isn’t very common.
“[If I] hadn’t moved to Boston and I stayed in Texas … I think my outlook would be completely different,” said Sexton. “I don’t think that I would have learned so much about myself, and I definitely think that I would have had a lot more prejudice if I had stayed somewhere without this education. Also, I think I would have done things that were a lot more risky.”
Although she moved to a completely different state, Sexton noted sometimes schools just blocks apart had drastic variations in their sex ed curriculums.
Dr. Brandy Wiebe, a UBC sociology lecturer, is also a member of Saleema Noon Sexual Health Educators, a team who runs workshops in elementary and high schools introducing students to concepts surrounding anatomy, health and sex.
“We’ll meet with parents first, share what exactly we’re talking about, why it’s so important to be talking with their kids about sexual health right from the get-go in an inclusive, comprehensive way,” said Wiebe. “[We] support them, ideally, to be having those conversations with their kids as well as what’s happening in schools.”
Wiebe noted that in BC, the provincial framework for sexual health education is “worded very broadly,” which allows her
flexibility in how she approaches topics like Queerness with younger kids.
Wiebe typically begins by introducing reproduction and explaining how there are many ways people can start a family, like by adopting or by fertilizing an egg with the help of a doctor.
“I’ll say to the little ones starting in kindergarten, that could happen if you had two moms, or if you had two dads or if you had a single parent family,” said Wiebe.
“It’s there, not as a big glut of information, just as far as, ‘Hey, humans are diverse.’”
She also tries to help children understand how gender identity can differ from anatomy — parents often ask Wiebe if kids find this confusing or overwhelming. She used to check in with them throughout the lesson to see if they were understanding, but she’s realized this isn’t really necessary.
“I realized that that’s my adult brain that was reared within a binary system [which] kids don’t have as much,” she said.
Most elementary school-aged kids won’t even leave the class with any memory of what was discussed, let alone a thorough understanding of it — but there will usually be at least a few who are prepared to receive the information, Wiebe said.
“Some kids will then keep listening because they’re ready developmentally, or they’ve had the experience that supports more complexity,” she said. “I always assure parents that kids will only take what they’re ready for … They just learn through observation.”
Regardless of gender or sexuality, Wiebe makes sure she teaches all high school students about consent, safe sex, STIs and pleasure. She said some students may not think they need certain information, but it’s still important to have that knowledge in their back pocket. She specifically cited how Queer youth are more likely to experience unplanned pregnancy compared to their heterosexual counterparts because of “cisheterosexism encouraging experiences that maybe people aren’t truly enthusiastic about.”
“When we’re not truly enthusiastic, we’re certainly not empowered to care for our boundaries [and] our bodies,” Wiebe said.
But while this broad framework allows Wiebe to provide a more inclusive stance on sex ed, it leaves many teachers feeling helpless, and students suffering the consequences. Wiebe highlighted that one area where schools could support students’
“I realized that that’s my adult brain that was reared within a binary system [which] kids don’t have as much.”
— Dr. Brandy Wiebe, UBC sociology lecturer
sexual education is by actually training teachers on the subjects.
Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, formerly Planned Parenthood Canada, released a report citing the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada’s 2019 revised directives for sex ed — a tool to outline the national standards of what Canadians should be able to expect from their sexual education.
These standards focus on the quality of sexual education and the need for it to be consistent, with students of all identities receiving inclusive and scientifically accurate information. However, the report iterated that provincial and territorial governments responsible for curriculum development and implementation are falling short.
Action Canada notes that sex ed in Canada tends to be spotty due to a host of reasons, including a lack of standard evaluations of sex ed classes, no mechanisms to ensure provinces implement this curriculum and no provincial funding to ensure teachers are properly educated and feel comfortable teaching the material.
“It’s like walking up to any parent on the street and being like, ‘Hey, why don’t you roll up and do this sex ed lesson.’ That’s not fair to ask teachers to [do] without training,” said Wiebe.
Not all schools are inviting educators like Wiebe to take the lead on these conversations — so what are other schools doing instead, and is it actually working?
Mason O’Connor, a fifth-year studying anthropology and critical studies in sexuality, grew up in Toronto. One of her earliest memories of learning about bodies was in grade 5, when O’Connor said her class was introduced to some useful information about puberty, but also unhealthy perspectives on body image.
“[Our teacher told us] puberty is the easiest time in your life to gain a lot of weight, and once you gain that weight in puberty, it sticks,” she said.
In grade 7, her class was shown pictures of genitals impacted by STI symptoms, but there was no explanation of what sex actually was and how one could avoid infection.
O’Connor switched into a private all-girls school in grade 10, which she described as a space that promoted feminism and raising strong women — but her sex ed only entailed classes centring on self-defence. She remembers a police officer coming into the class for the unit.
“We learned all these self-defence moves, and he would pin us down in a position that, they didn’t say, but was meant to simulate rape. So he would be straddling us, and then we would only pass the unit if we could fight our way out,” she said.
“At the time, I didn’t have the words to explain why that was so uncomfortable and scary.”
When it came to Queerness, O’Connor remembers her gym teacher looking up the word ‘trans’ on the projector and simply giving them the Merriam-Webster definition. While her class spoke a bit about the
“At the time, I didn’t have the words to explain why that was so uncomfortable and scary.”
— Mason O’Connor, fifth year UBC student
concepts of gender identity and sexual orientation, they didn’t provide any practical guidance for how to practice safe sex.
“I think Queer sex was so absent from any discussions of sexuality that it meant there was really no understanding of how to be safe or practice harm reduction in Queer relationships. I definitely would have thought, ‘Oh, why would you need protection for Queer sex?’ ‘There’s no possibility of pregnancy, then why would you need that?’”
O’Connor noted there was no curriculum for teachers to follow, so the level of education varied teacher by teacher — many of O’Connor’s teachers took a fearbased approach to teaching that encouraged students to avoid sex.
“In Ontario, there was so little kind of guidance or training that went into sex ed that teachers would essentially say whatever they wanted,” she said. “I had friends who went to the same school as me who got really amazing sex ed because they had a teacher who really cared about it, and I just got pretty unlucky with teachers who had more problematic or more traditional views.”
O’Connor saw her school’s gay-straight alliance (GSA) as a rare space where she could feel comfortable talking about Queerness.
In Nilsa Nilli’s case, her school’s GSA initiated and led Queer sex ed workshops by reaching out to health care workers and sexual educators that could come in to speak to students that wanted to listen — it made up for what she perceived as a lack of care from the educators and administration team at her Burnaby high school.
“It wouldn’t have happened without them … it was probably the most pleasant sex ed experience I’ve had,” said Nilli, who is now a second-year English literature student at UBC.
“The admin team, the principal — I don’t really think anyone really cared enough to put in more effort than what was given by the district. And the district didn’t care enough to give more than what was given to them.”
Nilli mentioned that part of maintaining the safe atmosphere of GSA-facilitated workshops and other Queer spaces was to advertise by word-of-mouth within circles of friends.
But what about the students who are still questioning their sexuality or don’t know these resources exist? Keeping this information reserved for a space that’s not accessible — even
though it is for safety reasons — doesn’t allow everyone who may need this information an equal opportunity to hear it. According to Action Canada’s report, Queer sex ed should be incorporated into all sex ed classes, which should be more standardized between schools.
Although it would be best for this learning to happen in schools, if students don’t learn about something in class, they will turn to other channels.
Sexton, O’Connor and Nilli all noted that friends, the internet and media — specifically the TV show Glee which, as problematic as it was at times, was a pioneer of Queer representation — became their main sources of information surrounding sex and Queerness.
“A lot of my sex ed that I’ve learned [has] been online. It’s been through friends, it’s been through GSA and community-run organizations,” said Nilli.
For O’Connor, one of the biggest things she’d like to see changed in the education system is more emphasis on sex positivity.
“I would say the biggest thing that I want added into sex ed, even more foundationally, than just information about Queer relationships, is the idea that you can want as much or as little sex as you want,” she said.
Wiebe highlighted how often teachers tend to emphasize combatting homophobia and gloss over other discussions of how to support Queer students — again, centring sex ed around fear and avoidance instead of encouraging students to be curious and ask questions.
“Teachers are trained to teach what they teach … but not sexuality — not tender, sensitive, triggering topics,” said Wiebe.
“I have so much empathy for teachers that are there and trying to make a difference. Some of them are so amazing just by being their Queer selves … those folks that are working like that, they’re doing all they can.”
For teachers to be able to successfully teach sex ed and everything that encompasses, the current system needs to be reformed. The building blocks of the problem continue to be a lack of foundation and oversight from government organizations, and without the proper funding or care, the quality of students’ sex ed will be left up to luck.
“The school district does not understand what it means to be a Queer student, what it means to be a teenager, and I think that that’s really important,” said Nilli. U
“I know how babies are made.”
That’s the bomb seven-yearold me dropped on a casual Tuesday to my wide-eyed mother in the kitchen. It marked the first time the topic of sex was raised between us and reflected the way conversations about anything sexual would pan out with my parents for years to come. I’d throw out a statement, test the waters and instead of a splash, the water retreated.
Earlier that day at school, all the grade 2 classes were ushered into the music portable for a “special presentation,” so special that some parents signed a form forbidding their kids’ attendance. Intrigued, I sat criss-cross applesauce in the front row, eagerly awaiting the smiling presenter to reveal top secret information. Maybe she was an undercover agent enlisting our help.
Instead, she pulled out a popup book.
I was a smart kid. I read above grade level and teachers called me a pleasure to have in class. But as the lady flipped through pages and talked about body parts in a cheery voice, my forehead furrowed deeper and deeper. And while normally I believe that society underestimates children’s intelligence, they might have jumped the gun trying to explain the exact mechanics of sex to a seven-year-old.
Here’s how I understood it: a man and woman take off all their clothes, stand facing each other and inch closer together until his penis brushes her pelvis.
Bam. Sex.
I left the music portable, perplexed. This misconception of how babies were made stayed with me for years afterwards. My parents didn’t catch it because they never followed up on my declaration.
Most kids would be relieved their parents didn’t discuss sex-related things. My brain — my sweet, stupid brain whose number one skill is self-sabotage — took it as an insult.
Growing up, over the clinks of chopsticks at dinner, I’d look at my parents — my dad with his narrow shoulders and sharp chin, my mom with her voluminous hair pinned back, both Korean immigrants — and wonder if they loved each other.
As a kid, you’re told that the root of marriage is true love and couples live happily ever after. But on TV, I watched Western parents smile and kiss while their kids yelled, “Gross!” and knew that scene would never play out in my household. There was genuine care between my parents and the connection of two people bound by 20 years of marriage and one know-it-all daughter. But I still heard half-
jokes about divorce more often than I saw physical affection.
Korean parents can be like that.
This is all to say that I never associated my parents with the passionate, flaming, hot-andheavy love that I equated with early perceptions of sex — the kind of love I wanted to find. It cemented a belief that they weren’t the right people to get romance education from.
Still, something about my parents’ avoidance of the awkward “talk” was bothersome. I viewed the willingness to educate somebody as an acknowledgement of their maturity and capacity to understand complex topics. When my parents brushed away my
Words by Joyce Park
fierce tears and blood-boiling arguments. Sometimes I poke the bear and prod him with questions. Once, I asked him what he thought was an appropriate age for a couple to go on a romantic one-night trip together.
He refused to answer. He kept saying that “it depends” and I kept saying that of course it depends, but he must
questions about physical intimacy, I felt diminished.
So I became responsible for my own sex ed. I whipped open Google Docs and took notes on some interesting YouTube searches. I read a shit ton of romance novels, and while they aren’t known for being realistic, it’s where I lost that transactional idea of sex from the music portable and first understood it as something desirable. I escalated from reading about cute kisses in Percy Jackson to full-blown, hold-your-horses sex scenes in — actually, that’s too exposing. Let’s just say there are a lot of trashy romance books out there. My own educational pursuits made me blush, but normalized the idea of sex. It was empowering to understand what sex was and remove the taboo attitude around it. I stopped viewing it as something awkward to discuss.
But this education flew under the radar of my parents, who never realized just how normal I found it.
It’s no secret that my Korean immigrant father is more conservative than his young Westernized daughter, particularly regarding relationships — a hard-won truth from years of
have an approximate age range, no? High school — probably not. University — maybe? Mid-20s?
My dad snapped that he was uncomfortable talking about this with me, ending the conversation. Later, my mom told me it was because an overnight couples’ trip implied sex.
I was pissed. He treated
me like a child, which deep down, was exactly what I was trying to reverse. I’d known my questions would make him uncomfortable and was pushing him to face the fact that I was a grown enough woman to have proper discussions about relationships. After years of being seated at the kids table, I wanted to stab my knife deep into the adult table to prove I belonged there.
Even at age seven, declaring that I knew how babies were made had been a strategic move. I’d wanted to see the surprise on my mom’s face. I’d wanted her to realize that I knew more than what my parents gave me credit for.
In case
I’ve misled you, let me get this straight: I have a great relationship with my parents. But conversations about sex and romance are tricky. We use different languages, one developed from Western society and media, the other from late 1900s Korean culture. (We also, quite literally, could not have a physiological discussion about sex in the same language. My Korean and their English doesn’t go that far.)
It’s not always that I know more than what my parents expect — I just know differently than what they expect.
These clashing expectations, combined with protectiveness of their only daughter and the inevitable dose of awkwardness, mean that sometimes I’m on my own more than I’d like to be when figuring life out. But sometimes there’s no point testing the waters when you’re diving into the deep end anyway. U
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Words by Anonymous
For as long as I can remember, the idea of ‘family’ has been an entanglement of comfort and tension — years of feeling torn between what I thought a family should be and what it actually felt like.
There are those bound to me by blood, but those relationships come with unspoken rules, judgements and limitations. My worth is conditional to how well I fulfill my role in the family. And I’ve spent the better part of my life perfecting my form to fit that role; learning to speak the way I was “supposed to,” dress the way I was “meant to” and act the way I “ought to.”
I had to be the perfect son — one that embodied the ideals and traditions of a cisgender, heterosexual, Bengali, Muslim family.
There couldn’t be any cracks. I had to be perfect at all times, at all costs. I had to hide my true being beneath layers of clothing I never felt comfortable in and beneath layers of masks that never quite fit my face. Because deep down, underneath it all, the truth was undeniably clear: my Queerness would
never be welcome.
“It isn’t our way.”
“That’s not who we are.”
“We did not raise you to be that way.”
“What will everyone think when they hear about this?”
I had heard versions of these statements from each of my family members, always used to describe those who had chosen the ‘other’ life. I have always feared the day they would be used on me.
I don’t blame my family for any of it. When I moved to Canada, I began to understand the differences in culture and community, and how it is a privilege to be accepted. I began to better understand the odds my parents faced. Having a Queer son was a death sentence for my family in our country. Their rules were intended to protect me from my religion, my community and my country. That is the burden my family would have to bear, and that is why I hide my truth. My way of loving my family is to carry this burden alone.
Like any budding international student, I came to Canada with the hope of a new start. I
looked forward to everything being different. More importantly, I looked forward to finally being unmasked and free, so the burden I carried could feel at least somewhat lighter.
I realized almost immediately that I had spent so long hiding behind masks that I didn’t know how to be anything without them. The fear of my Queerness being discovered persisted, even after travelling thousands of miles away from home. I struggled to make any meaningful connections and my fear of coming out kept holding me back.
Through all of it, I started taking my first steps.
I made my first meaningful connection with someone I now call my partner. It wasn’t easy, of course, being so open and vulnerable about my sexuality — it felt alien.
But he made it easy.
I remember the first time I met my partner’s mother. Meeting your partner’s family for the first time is a daunting experience for anyone, and the fear and apprehension of whether or not they will like you can be overwhelming. But
as I walked into my partner’s home for the first time and was greeted by his mother, there was no question in my mind — I felt right at home.
For the first time I knew love that came with no conditions. Through my partner, I was blessed with a family that showed me kindness and acceptance. I received love from a mother with whom I felt comfortable being myself. I could be everything I wanted to be and be loved for it, not in spite of it. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t left questioning my place. His presence in my life and his family’s acceptance helped me realize the burden was not mine to bear alone.
It made me question everything I thought I knew about family. To receive the love and acceptance I have from my partner and his family was a gift I felt unworthy of. And the love and comfort without any of the tension was a strange feeling.
Being bound to someone by love and care felt liberating. As otherworldly as all of it felt to me, it has made all the difference in my life.
Do I wish my relationship with my own family was the same? I think anyone in my position would. A part of me is hopeful my family would readily change their views and accept me if I came out to them, that their love for me would be stronger than their beliefs.
But there’s another part of me that feels selfish to want this. How could I expect my family to abandon everything they know and believe, or have been conditioned to believe, simply because I am different? Who am I to say they were wrong to believe otherwise?
And then there’s a part of me that is angry — at myself for failing to be everything that everyone wants me to be and still be true to myself, and at the world for making all of it seem impossible.
But most importantly, there’s a part of me that feels happy and content — to have a partner who is loving, to have a second mother who is kind and accepting of my Queerness and to have a family who, despite their limitations, love and support me in their own way. I’m thankful for all of it. U
Many of us remember the genderbread person from Tumblr days of yore and know that gender doesn’t equal sexuality. But what about when they come together and influence each other for the better?
That’s what Kiarah O’Kane — a first year PhD student in the clinical psychology program at UBC — is exploring in their research.
After getting involved in sex research after their undergrad, O’Kane realized that most sex research focused on cis people and lags behind in capturing gender-diverse experiences, despite more recent research attempting to be more inclusive. According to O’Kane, most studies that did focus on the sexual experiences of trans people tended to only look at the bad parts.
“A lot of the focus on the sexual experiences of trans folks that has been done so far is predominantly focused on negative aspects of their sexual experiences, or it's really medicalizing and really focused on gender dysphoria,” said O’Kane.
Rather than continuing this trend, O’Kane decided to take a different approach.
“As a non-binary person myself, I know that there's so many strengths within our community and so many positive aspects of our gender-related experiences.”
O’Kane’s research project focuses on the links between gender euphoria and sexual wellbeing in gender-diverse and cisgender individuals and couples.
A relatively new concept in the world of psychology, gender euphoria is the positive version of the more talked about gender dysphoria — a way of describing distress over a person’s assigned gender or sex.
Definitions for gender euphoria can vary. One study in the American Journal of Bioethics defined gender euphoria as “a distinct enjoyment or satisfaction caused by the correspondence between the person’s gender identity and gendered features associated with a gender other than the one assigned at birth.”
Other research conceptualize it as a form of distress relief or trans resilience.
‘Firsts’ often come up as particularly impactful instances of experiencing gender euphoria, such as the first time being called by one’s preferred pronouns or first time wearing a packer.
Fourth-year engineering student Shai Gropper recalled her first time experiencing gender euphoria when her ‘egg cracked’ — a term used by the trans community to describe the moment when you first realize you are trans.
“I remember it first happen-
Words by Gloria Klein
ing fall of 2019 where I was just on Snapchat and I was looking at different filters, and I had one which [gave me a] little bit of a smoky eye and a lip thing. I was like, ‘Damn, I kind of like this. This is crazy,’” she said. “That was the first real moment that I was able to recognize that there was something more than just a boy in me.”
For Gropper, gender euphoria is more than just wearing a dress or being called ‘she.’
“Gender euphoria for me can look like being on the bus and having another woman sit next to me [and] being like, ‘Oh, I look like a safe person for another woman to be next to.’”
“I have been out for over two years. I've been on hormones for over two years, and gender euphoria is less about the small things of getting recognized with my gender, and more about just feeling good as a woman at this point,” she said.
In terms of what’s affirming in the bedroom (or wherever folks choose to get it on), trans people — much like cis people — are not a monolith.
While some experience gender euphoria from certain stereotypically gendered acts, such as transmasculine people using a strap-on for the first time, this isn’t the be-all end-all.
“I'm a lesbian and I never
really felt affirmed in my gender by men,” said Gropper. “[When I’m] hooking up with other trans people, other trans women, other cis women, there's a better understanding of the fact that we're both women.”
For Gropper, gender euphoria during sex isn’t necessarily about doing certain acts and can even come from doing “the stereotypical things that you would ‘expect’ from someone with a penis.”
“Shout out to not exclusively bottoming as a trans woman, because I know that there are some that do, because they'll get dysphoria from using their dick … and that I understand,” she said. “But personally, for me, I'm just like, ‘Let's go, awesome.’ I can give somebody else pleasure and get pleasure on my own and have it still be done in an affirming way for my gender.”
Since there is little academic research looking at gender euphoria in general including during sex, other sources such as zines and social media sites like Reddit are powerful resources for trans people to learn about sex and pleasure when more conventional ways of knowing often don't include resources for Queer people.
Fucking Trans Women, for example, is a zine created by Mira Bellwether to talk to other trans women about sex which features lessons about anatomy and sex
toys as well as more personal writings.
Both O’Kane and Gropper pointed to fluidity as a strength in gender-diverse individuals.
“Gender-diverse people tend to be more flexible in general, and have maybe more expansive understandings of gender in the context of sexuality, which is a really good thing,” said O’Kane, highlighting this flexibility as something that researchers could focus on fostering in the future to improve people's sexual being.
“As much as I'm a trans woman, I'm also non-binary. And part of that non-binary-ness is a bit of gender fluidity. I'm not ever consistently one thing. The way that I like to describe it is to say that I contain multitudes. I'm never one specific thing, because nobody is ever one specific thing,” said Gropper.
By centring gender euphoria in their research, O’Kane hopes to uplift their community, particularly during current political climates where trans joy can in itself be an act of resistance.
“What excites me and what's really meaningful to me is to be able to really focus on and shed a lot of light on these experiences of trans and gender-diverse people that really aren't often spoken about or focused on in broader scientific literature, but also in public discourse.” U
In my first year of college, I decided to go to a drag show for the first time. Traipsing down Lower Mall with my friends, we giggled nervously as we talked about what the show might be like. They were all bubbling with excitement, their energy radiating throughout Koerner’s Pub as we entered, the rush of a new experience pumping through the air.
But I felt more apprehensive than excited. Dressing up in drag or watching it didn’t really appeal to me, and I would hear throngs of judgy aunties shaming me in the back of my mind if I thought about it for more than a few seconds. Besides, I felt I didn’t meet what I thought were the requirements to be there. I hadn’t romantically held hands with a girl, let alone kissed one.
Did I even deserve to be here?
Shouldn't I give up my seat for someone more Queer than me?
I couldn’t stop thinking about this in the moments before the show began, my head spinning from this identity crisis that I didn’t know who to talk to about.
Yet when I actually watched the show, I almost cried — out of admiration for the way the performers openly expressed themselves, and for the Queer part of myself that had spent forever in hiding and still didn’t feel safe enough to emerge from its cocoon.
I remember thinking: what must it feel like to be so bold with how you live? To be so yourself that people recognize that and don’t question the authenticity of your identity?
And more importantly: would I ever get to that point?
These questions burrowed holes in my mind for many months following the show, and I began questioning the feelings I had about the one girl I’d even liked so far. I brought it up with a friend during the following summer, asking, “But what if I never actually liked her, and it was all in my head?”
She looked baffled.
“Babe, you were smitten. Did you hear yourself talk about her?”
Oh. I’d never realized that in the midst of my crisis about perceiving myself as Queer, others were already seeing me in that light. It was a pleasant surprise, but I was still confused.
“But, like, how do I enter the Queer community? Does this mean I just… am a part of it?” I asked.
“Of course! There’s no ‘entrance,’ babe. Here, if you like, I can give you ‘official’ permission to join us. Yeh lo, your imaginary entry ticket. Happy?”
Something shifted in my brain chemistry that day. It was like the ball had finally dropped on my needing to validate myself as being a member of the community.
And while this realization helped tide me over for a while, it didn’t completely quash the demons inside. I let the obstacles that came with entering new phases of my life take over my brain, the rise and fall of second year occupying any active spaces. The thoughts came back recently,
though, when I started to like someone again. Another girl. I refused to tell my friends about it, hoping it wasn’t real and would just go away. I didn’t want to accept that the monster was still there — the one that crept up now and then to create pockets of misery in corners of my mind, screaming, “It’s all in your head, fool!”
Why was it so difficult for me to accept that I might like her?
That I found her attractive and funny and kind and beautiful in more than a platonic way? That I might want to kiss her and hold her hand out in public like a straight couple? That I might even love her someday?
Why couldn’t I give myself the permission to imagine the two of us as a ‘normal’ couple in my mind?
Then it happened — the first peck on the lips, the hands laced in one another’s in the middle of a Tim Hortons, the cuddling before classes started for the day. It all happened, but I didn’t feel much lighter. In fact, I felt heavier. Like the weight of the world was on me to come out to friends and family and everyone in sight. Like everything we did had to be explained and justified to everyone around.
I wanted to explain to them that Queerness has been around forever, in scriptures in Indian temples and in our deities, in people of all ages; that it’s not a fad or something I want to be a part of to ‘look cool.’
That this is just… me.
The internalized homophobia continued growing creepers around my heart, squeezing it tighter and tighter. She was lovely and we were great, so why couldn’t I stop?
Why can’t I?
I thought telling people might be the solution. Being open about it, you know? So I told my friends, family friends and even my parents, thinking maybe if they accepted me, it would bring me closer to accepting myself. It helped for sure, but not as much as I thought.
So I still wonder, what makes it easier?
What if I refuse to accept this as a true fear and just move through life in denial? Will it stay like a pit in my stomach until I can’t bear it any longer and just burst? Do I need to face it headon? How do I even do that?
Maybe it begins with me writing this piece, throwing myself into a crisis all over again. Or maybe it begins by accepting that I might always feel this way.
But I don’t want to. I want to experience Queer joy — the feeling of lightness people talk about, the utter acceptance of who they are. I want to be able to think of her — her grinning face, tender eyes, gentle hands — without having the knots in my stomach rise up to my heart, preventing me from feeling anything wholly. I want to be able to love her the way she deserves.
I don’t want to feel this way forever. U
Words by Tiana Khandelwal
Generations of confused teenagers have turned to the lesbian masterdoc, a scripture for the women-loving-women community, to answer one of the world’s greatest mysteries: am I a lesbian?
That’s a great question. And while there may not be a height requirement, there are many signs you may be a woman who likes women. We’ve compiled a list of possible indicators you might be playing for the other team and not even know it yet — and for your convenience, we’ve perfectly tailored it to the UBC student experience.
You might be a lesbian if you’ve ever:
• Volunteered at Sprouts or Agora
• Bought a copy of Fun Home from the UBC Bookstore
• Stormed the wall (staring at a girl’s butt as you push her up the wall? I see you)
• Worn that UBC hoodie with the mushrooms (you know the one)
• Worked a little too hard to get your ‘friend’ from class the notes after she was sick with the flu
• Seen UBC President Benoit-Antoine Bacon blink
• Chosen your favourite TA based on their cool and sexy masc haircut
Words by Aisha Chaudhry, Elena Massing, Gloria Klein
• Crashed out because Lucy Dacus’s tour doesn’t have any Vancouver dates
• Gone to the Aviary (I see you guys with your harnesses and carabiners, you little freaks)
• Gotten your hair cut during Big Joy $5 Wednesday
• Taken a GRSJ course “as an ally”
• Understood what Blank Vinyl Project meant when they made the Goosehunt theme ‘indie sleaze’
• Gotten way too obsessed with student journalism
• Agreed to attend a student governance meeting simply because you liked the girl who was going
• Refused to skip a class and always sat in the front row because you thought your female professor was ‘neat’
• Bought train tickets to Portland because a girl you like wanted to see Mitski
• Suggested you and your ‘friend’ hang out at Granville Island (there is no such thing as a casual hangout at Granville Island, it is a date)
• Fantasized about your high school English teacher
• Bought the vegan banana bread from Blue Chip
• Volunteered to read one of your poems out loud in CRWR 201
• Been a geography major
• Felt a special connection to the Camosun Bog
• Screamed in your dorm room the first time you watched Chappell Roan’s SNL Performance of “The Giver”
• Yearned
• Scissored U
QUICKIE CROSSWORD
By Mrinali Ghosh
ACROSS
1. Ancient text on love
6. Everyone's a little Queer according to him
7. Man's best friend?
10. First oral contraceptive, in 1960s America
11. Smut for middle-aged women
12. Brits call it a rubber, first one made in 1855
13. Flag position or slang for level of erectness
FIND THE CLIT!
By Emilija V Harrison
DOWN
2. 1969 Queer rights uprising in the US
3. Eiffel Tower maker?
4. Victorian Jason Derulo wants you to wiggle wiggle your?
5. Ellis, sexologist pioneer
8. American 1965 case on contraceptive rights
9. First vibrator treatment
