We called it Honey Glazed Donuts. 

As ten-year-olds, the thought of saying “Human Growth and Development,” or even HG&D, seemed out of place.

We huddled in clumps and sat on the ground — boys and girls not instructed to separate, but somehow ending up that way — staring up at the projector and stifling giggles when detailed anatomical diagrams of penises and vaginas appeared in front of us.

We remember labelling those penises and vaginas by ourselves, awkwardly asking each other for help with spelling body parts that, up until now, seemed foreign. We remember the hushed conversations about periods, some feeling relieved that bleeding every month didn’t make them a weird anomaly, others dreading the thought of eventually being subject to pads and tampons and blood and cramping. 

We don’t remember, however, the lesson taught to girls about masturbation — because, well, it didn’t exist. 

We remember boys being taken to a separate room one day while we talked more about dealing with periods and breasts and hair under our armpits. Having periods, breasts and hair under our armpits were perfectly normal, our teachers reassured the girls, and so was shaving and getting new bras and asking other girls for pads. And while we learned that our bodies were allowed to be hairy and bloody, painful and beautiful, the boys learned about something else in another room.

In the days that followed, the word “masturbation” floated around, as boys snickered under their breath, in on what seemed like a private joke that only they could share. But the girls ignored it — our teachers didn’t tell us about it, so surely it didn’t have anything to do with us, right? Our teachers didn’t tell us about it, so “masturbation” surely wasn’t for girls, right? 

We were painfully aware of the biological workings behind our periods. We knew an egg is released every month, and that our uterine lining forms to protect said egg. We knew about ovulation and why having sex without a condom, even once, could be detrimental to our future. We knew eventually, this would be relevant — many of us would end up as mothers and bear children.

That was the only purpose of our vaginas — to eventually have sex, and later children. They should be protected, we were told, guarded like a sacred object that could eventually get us into trouble, not just handed to anybody. The word “vagina” was whispered like it was almost painful to say, often traded for a more palatable term. “Your lady parts,” our teachers would mutter, clearing their throats as their cheeks turned pink, their embarrassment bleeding under the desks, wrapping around us until it became our own. 

But in spite of all the conversations about contraceptives, all the warnings that sex would be painful the first time and that losing our virginity was not a thing to be taken lightly, nobody ever told us that our vaginas aren’t just objects. Our teachers, in spite of all their detailed anatomical diagrams, never told us pleasure, sex, masturbation and vaginas had anything to do with each other. 

When we remember Honey Glazed Donuts, we can never remember the word “pleasure” being mentioned. We cannot recall being told that sex was desirable for ourselves, not for procreation or for a man, not as a means to rip away our virginity in a painful and awkward ordeal. We cannot remember being told that female pleasure was normal.

Isn’t that what they call internalized misogyny?