Growing up in rural Utah,
nobody told me anything.
Me and my parents never had a sex talk.
There weren't facts about sex.
I had my child at 19.
We are a primarily coal and oil area.
Most everybody has some sort of history
with their family and coal mining.
And I think people just think we're
this barren backwards desert, but
there are people that do care.
There are people who put their
whole livelihoods into caring and
making things accessible down here.
The first thing we do is we
feel for uterus and ovaries.
So it's kind of like a pap smear.
You've had one of those.
Danielle's Eastern Utah Women's
Health is one of the only reproductive
health clinics within Carbon County.
She gets to see all of the effects
of not having adequate sex ed.
So we started a sex ed program.
The clitoris is understood to
have how many nerve endings?
400, 4,000, 8,000,or 10,000?
At least, at least 12.
Yellow is a good color,
I'll just click that one.
Yellow is correct.
It was partly Tomi's passion,
and partly what the community
was starting to ask more for.
That made me really think, okay,
we need to really figure out how
we're going to move this forward.
So, I've been told by my mom that the
speculum they use when they put the IUD in
have teeth in them to hold it in, is that?
Nope.
No teeth.
Here, pass this around.
You should always check the expiration
date first, but if you can feel
air between it, it's a good condom.
If not, bad condom, don't use it.
I think this one would be like second.
They are peer educators.
So, we're teaching them
to teach their friends.
And Utah schools are not allowed
to use the words consent.
You have to use refusal skills.
So, consent, intimate partner violence,
all of that, is really what we're focusing
on alongside of the anatomy and STIs.
Going into Teen Council and kind
of getting what consent looks like
has given me so much confidence.
I had a really hard time understanding
that I could just do what I want.
Like, not even just like when
it comes to people like touching
me, but like dressing how I want.
And, also not having to hug people or be
touched by people when I don't want to.
I just kind of thought that I
was something I just had to do.
Like just had to let people stomp all
over my bodily autonomy like that.
But now that I've kind of
understood how important it is,
it's really changed a lot for me.
Definitely a big, big thing
that's helped me out a lot.
And I hope to continue to teach myself
how to take care of my own needs.
It's, it's a very beautiful, but also
a very hard place to live sometimes.
My rainbow flag from my front porch has
been in the garbage three times now.
And it's like hooked in.
So I know it wasn't just the wind.
A couple stickers on my car up have
been scratched at a couple of times.
People have yelled things
at me on the street.
I'm glad it happens to
me and not other people.
I've been doing this for a long time
and it takes more energy to be sad
about it or to feel threatened about it.
Most of the teens that are in high school
here will probably just go to USU Eastern.
It's cheap.
It's close to home.
When I first started college at USU
Eastern, I had to immediately start
helping people through really hard, really
terrible things that happened to them.
My second fall at USU, we had a
really big sexual assault case.
It came through on all of
our phones that morning.
I had within 24 hours, six girls tell
me that the same thing had happened
to them and that they needed help
and they didn't know how to get that.
And, you know, it just - the
things didn't happen to me.
But they happened to other people and
helping people through that is not fun.
I'd rather catch them at the
beginning, and have them know all
about consent, how to ask for it, what
to do if somebody doesn't ask for it.
I know that college kids are only a year
or two off from where our teens are now.
So, having our six kids be known as
experts in sex is going to have such
a ripple effect on our community.
My mom left me this little book on periods
when I was ten, just left it laying around
the house, and I learned everything.
And I was like, this is the
most fascinating thing ever.
And so it's always been interesting to me.
And, you know, I just wanted to be able
to know all I could about it and to really
help people to understand their body.
What you guys are learning how to
do as peer educators, you put it
all out there, in a nonjudgmental
way, and you let them choose.
This is just a big deal to me to be
in like Teen Council, just because I
have never had, like, everything I've
learned about sex ed has come from this.
I knew nothing.
My mom never sat down and
gave me the talk on anything.
I never got the period talk even.
And I didn't get to take a health
class because when I did, finally - and
it wouldn't have been great, cause
I've heard - but when I was going
to even get like the basics of like,
this is what a penis is, COVID hit.
So I didn't get to take a health class.
I care a lot about, and in
this topic interests me.
So it's very important to me that
like, I don't want any other like
14-year-old kid to be like, what
is happening and why am I bleeding?
Cause that's terrifying.
Utah's like they to learn
about it in the home.
They need to learn about
it from the parents.
But the problem is, is the parents
never learned it to be able to teach it.
So how do you make a
difference in generations and
generations and generations?
That's where these teens come in.
They're not only teaching other teens,
they're going and talking to their
brothers and sisters and their family.
And then I think it gets
to the heart of the adults.
Even myself, I've learned so
much from being taught by them.
You know, I think it's natural to go back
through your relationships as a teen.
And I'm like, where were you?
Where were you when I needed this?
Where were you to teach me
that this is not healthy?
And so, now we have all of these
amazing teens out there doing this work.
Sometimes people will think that unhealthy
behaviors aren't that bad since they
aren't abusive, but they still can be
very destructive if they aren't dealt
with and resolved in a healthy manner.
I'm kind of starting to get known as
the girl who talks about this stuff
and I'm like, you know, that's great.
Cause for awhile, I, like, I always
had so much anxiety talking to people.
I'd be like, am I saying the wrong thing?
Did I say that?
Was it weird?
Did I say something weird?
Like, that was weird,
like why did I say that?
And now I'm like, yeah, that was weird.
And I said it.
Alright, let's keep going
with the conversation.
I don't want to say we're like a
little family, but we kind of are.
Like, I know at any moment I could
text any of them and be like, hey,
I'm really struggling with this.
And they'd be like, cool.
I'm there.
What do you need?
I'll help you.
It's kind of like a support
system, that's nice to have.
Oh, my gosh, cute.
T'Kiah, this gift is perfect for you.
It would be a shame if someone
took it only to piss you off.
You can't create a community
that you desire without being
a part of the community.
I couldn't make things better here if I
don't live here, and I desperately want
things to be better for younger kids.
We have a responsibility to leave
the world better than we found it.
And that's really just what I'm trying
to do with Teen Council and sex ed
in the rural community in general.
Just make things a little bit better.
So we've got, this is like the
Teen Council one, this one says
safe sex doesn't suck, cats against
cat calls, safe sex, she/her, a
little Planned Parenthood one.
This one's falling off.
And then baddie for safe sex.
All that I ever think about.