Amanda Crisci | Spread Co-Editor

Image by The Menlo Bard

Last week, the Menlo School Bard released a provocative winter issue surrounding the topic of sex in high school. The online magazine is 47 pages in length and includes primarily narrative opinions in addition to informational pieces and visual timelines.

Every winter issue of the Bard focuses on a theme like mental health, race, and gender. For this feature the staff wanted to focus on an issue that wasn’t discussed in the Menlo community, but was nonetheless extremely prevalent.

Senior Riya Mirchandaney, co-editor-in-chief of the Bard, said that the issue was tough to produce but was a worthwhile endeavor. “When we do talk about sex, we do it with layers of euphemism and ambiguity. In creating this issue of the Bard, we wanted to talk about sex without all of the layers, to talk about it in a way that is simple and true. We wanted to portray sex for what it is, complicated, scary, exciting, sometimes fun, sometimes not,” Mirchandaney said.

This issue featured two anonymous opinions from Menlo students, one, which discussed an abusive relationship, and another which discussed the experience of being a victim of rape. Mirchandaney cited that both these two stories were the hardest to deal with during the creation and editing process. “With every sentence, you have to ask, “What is the point of publishing this? What will people gain from reading this?” And, ultimately, with the consent of the authors, we decided that certain explicit details would distract readers from the greater purpose and integrity of the [anonymous] pieces,” Mirchandaney said.

So far, the Bard staff has felt that the response to the issue has been extremely positive. “Honestly, we were expecting a bit of backlash …. But that hasn’t happened. We’ve had teachers, classmates, people from other schools tell us how much this issue means to them, which is sort of the best feeling in the world,” Mirchandaney said.

In the future, the Bard hopes to tackle other social issues that emerge in the community, while also retaining their sense of purpose as an educational and thought enduing publication.

You can read the latest issue of the Bard HERE