Red Room Where the Writers Are

"To make a baby?" he replies while stuffing a brownie into his mouth. Chocolate gathers in the corners of his mouth, crumbs stick to his chin and fall to the table as he waits for his response to be recorded in blue marker on the flip chart.

"Sure, of course. Should I put that under positive or negative?"  

"Well, positive if you're ready for it," says the youngest in the class, a frail girl.

She writes it under the ‘Positive' column beneath the overall heading: "Reasons to Have Sex."

"How about putting ‘unintended pregnancy' under the negative column?" she asks.

"Sure," several kids reply.

"To show you love someone?" says the often shy kid in the group of eleven 13-, 14-, and 15-year olds.

"Okay. Again, positive or negative?" she asks.

"Positive," brownie-chomper says. "Well, negative if you feel you have to."

"Hey, good point.  How about we put it under positive but add ‘feeling pressured' in the negative column? Anything else?"

"How about we add getting an infection under negatives," her husband says.

He sits at the table strewn with empty juice packs and brownie-stained paper plates and rolls his eyes as the class clown blows his straw wrapper into another kid's face. "Corey, give it a rest."

"Sure, get STIs that out of the way," she says. "And how about guilt and disapproval on the negatives."

"Yes!" says a kid who is often zoned out a bit.

"Hey, Sam, phones off! You know the rules. Come on, there's got to be more reasons to have sex, else why would be bother?"

"To make up after a fight," says the boy with something to prove.

"Well, okay, sure. Positive or negative?"

"Either," says the frail girl. "I guess."

"Um, it feels good," says the girl who hasn't met a chair that didn't permit expert slouching. She pulls the strings of her ever-present hoodie in a failed attempt to hide a spreading blush.

"Yes! I'm going to put that under positive" She adds it in bold strokes to the list. "Certainly. Anything else?

"How about stress relief?" Her suggestion is met with giggles. "Shall we add that to the list?"

"Sure," says the all-swagger-all-the-time kid.

"How about good exercise?" she asks.

"Really? Sex is good exercise?"

"Sure, it can be. Maybe not as much for younger people."

Her husband laughs softly at her quip.

"Well, okay, there're a lot of other reasons to have sex, positive and less so," she says. "Good work."

She replaces the cap on the marker and takes a swig from her water bottle before settling in to the rest of the hour and a half session, one of 28 she and her husband spent a full, tiring weekend training for so they could impart knowledge and explore values with the youth in their church. None of which trained them to clean brownie crumbs from the floor or watch a kid write "defecate" and "voluptuous" on his hand because he was fascinated with the words he hadn't heard before. She hated to point out to him that it was a permanent marker and he'd be going to school in the morning with "shit" on his hands.