Sex is just about as taboo as it gets for our society, especially as we continue to cling closely to our Puritanical roots. Despite the excessively apparent splattering of sexual content in media and film, the air surrounding the “birds and bees” conversation that parents endure with their children is pregnant with awkwardness and seemingly illicit material. Yet, the discussion of a young individual’s sexual health and well-being is a crucial necessity to developing a grounded and responsible understanding of sex and it’s guidelines. Because of the general discomfort parents and children have when it comes to the infamous “talk”, we often look to family practitioners and the Human Interaction teachers to act a as third party guide. However,…show more content… Stork takes great care in crafting Marcelo, the high functioning though somewhere on the Asperger’s spectrum protagonist of Marcelo in the Real World. While also struggling to comprehend the cues and rules of society, Marcelo confronts issues of sexuality that a majority of teenagers face at some point or another. In his work at his father Arturo’s law firm, Marcelo is placed in close confines with Jasmine, the 19-year-old insightful manager of the firm’s mailroom, and Wendell, the arrogant and manipulative young son of Arturo’s partner. Through his relationships with the two, Marcelo becomes increasingly aware of the differences between the fundamentals of a healthy attraction and how a person’s sexuality can be negatively used against…show more content… Wendell’s lectures on womanhood to Marcelo are often extremely misogynistic with his attempts to label and objectify the female sex. He labels women as “motherly” and “mammary” (88), “cold and unapproachable” (88) and “lustable”, capable of giving “hard-ons that come from the depth of the soul” (90). Because Wendell is portrayed as a smarmy, womanizing young man, readers agree with Jasmine’s observation that Wendell is “creepy” and “not someone you can trust” (91), therefore his actions and ideas are not to be replicated or mirrored. Marcelo at first understands Wendell’s assertions as a conversation between two friends in which their “two minds [are] bound together by their focus on the same subject” (89); however, the two young men do not seem to be discussing women on the same level. Marcelo begins to understand this, as he later comments to his rabbi that “there is something about the way [Wendell] feels towards women that seems wrong, but I don’t know why” (116). This accompanied by Wendell’s incessant attempts to forcefully seduce Jasmine, gradually leads to the introduction of sexual violence into the text. While Stork does not divulge whether or not Marcelo’s parents or teachers have ever talked to him about rape, Marcelo instinctively understands that Wendell’s behaviors towards Jasmine are included in what his rabbi states are the “innumerable and unspeakable ways” (120) ways that