I was reading an article this morning about a Philadelphia Health Department program that will now provide kids, as young as 11-years old, with free condoms. Needless to say the story is most controversial. Kids+Condoms must = Sex? 

Anyway, the outrage, which is sure to accompany the news, reminds me of the time in my middle school years, when some friends and I found a packaged condom (unopened) on the ground, somewhere on route to school. We had opened it and were playing with it in class, tossing it around from one child to the next. I got caught tossing it on the back of some boy, who bellowed out a very disruptive "eww."  My teacher saw the incident and I got sent to the principals office. My mom got called up to school, I got suspended and when I got home, my mom beat my ass.

During their little freak-out session, the principal and my mother were demanding to know where I got the condom from. They made me feel guilty as shit. All the while, I didn't know what the big deal was. I knew what a vagina was and what a penis was.  And I knew what happened when a vagina and a penis met. And most shockingly, I also knew what a condom was. But nevertheless, I, along with my friends, were playing around with it like a toy.

I remember how on that day, my mom, the teacher and the principal all made me feel like a damn sex offender. I'm surprise that this experience didn't turn me away from safe sex forever.

My point is two folds: 1). Just because kids have condoms doesn't necessarily mean that they are having sex. And 2). There are kids out there, who are having sex without the usage of condoms or other contraceptives and finding themselves in all sorts of trouble. So as adults, do we err on the side of caution or continue to bury our heads in the sand to the harsh truth that the children may know a little more about life and its experiences than we are ready for them to know?