One of the “lessons” that stuck with me the most was this: in a particularly sex shaming moment, the instructor asked us if we knew what happened to us when we had sex “too much.” To demonstrate, she got out a Hershey’s chocolate bar and said it would represent one girl’s sexuality (she picked a volunteer. Let’s call her Claire.) Claire was told that she had “share” her sexuality with a few boys in the room by inviting them to take bites of her chocolate bar. (I can’t make this shit up, y’all.) So she shopped her chocolate bar around the room. The first few boys took bites, but soon the chocolate bar was more and more disgusting–chewed up and unsanitary. Boys 5-7 didn’t want to take any bites.
The real problem is that if at least several students in the class had normal parents who discussed sex in a normal way with them, the only person “shamed” in this situation would be the teacher. Normal kids would be rolling on the floor with laughter when presented with such a scene. I grew up in an extremely puritanical environment but I cannot imagine my classmates and myself just sitting there, absorbing this idiocy, and not making the lesson end then and there by roaring with laughter. I can also guarantee that the poor teacher would never live this down and would not be able to teach anything in this school ever again.
So the real question here is: what have these kids’ parents been doing to them all these years to turn them into beaten-down little robots who don’t even see how hilarious the whole thing is?
Once again it becomes clear that a child who can be bullied at school, in the street, on the team, etc. is a child who was bullied at home first.
Clarissa's Blog 
If parents don’t allow the kid to grow, micromanage their lives, are too strict with them and don’t allow them to have some responsibility, agency etc. then it becomes a helpless pushover.
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Exactly!
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And some days, regardless if you have been bullied at home, the group dynamic is just bigger and stronger than where you are at that moment in your life. Anyone can be bullied at any time in their lives. Afterall, we all have our moments of weakness.
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I don’t find fatalism to be a productive worldview.
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Yes, we have. But somebody that could grow a thicker skin, a backbone can has a much better chance at dealing with it properly.
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@Wirbelwind
Without a doubt you are correct. But that still doesn’t mean they cant or wont ever be bullied. Regardless of what they do or do not learn at home.
@Clarissa
I find realism(you call it fatalism) a very productive worldview. It allows me to have my off days. 🙂
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Heh, so easy to turn the chocolate bar scenario into one that promotes safe sex and women setting their own boundaries about their own sexual behaviour. Just have the girl break off pieces of the chocolate bar and offer them to the boys.
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Something I noticed a long while back about the differences between Western children’s upbringing and those in Africa is that the African mother will literally shove her children away from her when/if she gets tired at the end of the day. That is quite natural and the child learns not to put undue stress on its mother. The Western woman, though, will talk of moral good and evil. Her child learns to feel evil for crossing a certain line and thus represses his or her natural exuberance.
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