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Showing posts from January, 2015

And, cue the moral outrage -- Part 1 of 3

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Source: https://www.threadless.com/product/684/Birds_The_Bees It was springtime of 1971, as I approached the end of my fifth grade year at Thorncliffe Park Elementary School, when we were summoned to a special gathering in the library. A public health nurse from the East York Board of Health stood before us with a film projector, and our teachers were stationed -- strategically, I'm sure -- around the perimeter. She was about to give us the talk . Her presentation included an animated film of spermatozoa swimming about fallopian tubes in search of an ovum. The sperm cells, we were told, came from the man; the eggs belonged to the woman. ( I do not recall, but I suspect the word   sperm   was used fleetingly and without fanfare.)  Nine months later... "Questions?" our visitor asked, as the lights came on. I can still picture the boy standing; though I can't recall his name. He had a reputation for causing trouble in class. A bit of a rarity in those days, he