So much about sex can be awkward for teenagers and young adults, but talking about it shouldn’t be one of those things. Here’s where Sexpecations comes in: a volunteer-led organization based in Chicago dedicated to helping young people navigate and overcome the awkwardness around sex through discussions about decision-making, consent, and sexuality, all in a relatable to real-life way.

Co-founded in 2018 by Chicago native Angela Townsend, a Black and Puerto Rican multidisciplinary artist, Sexpectations came to be when Angela was working as a Case Manager with teen parents at the Latin American Youth Center in Washington, D.C. After countless conversations with her own peers as well as the teens she saw, Angela and her colleague, Noah Hughes-Dunn, were inspired to create a safe space for teens to talk about sex. The idea returned with her to Chicago, where Angela quickly found a team who recognized the importance of the project.

Angela grew up in Humboldt Park, a historically predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood of Chicago. If you ask Angela to tell you more about herself, in more ways than one she will tell you that, first and foremost, she is her mother’s daughter. Her mother, who passed away in February 2020, was a pediatrician who dedicated much of her life’s work to educating the city’s adolescents on all things health. It was at her mother’s nonprofit, Youth Empowering Strategies, where Angela first dipped her toes in the health education waters.

But a fascination with criminal psychology inspired by Law & Order: Special Victims Unit led Angela to University of Maryland to study Criminology & Criminal Justice. By her junior year, however, she became disenchanted with the criminal justice system. Luckily she had already completed all of the required courses for her major and had the freedom to take electives in African American studies, Latino studies, and gender studies, the courses that would eventually inform Sexpectations.

“I was so shocked that I was just learning about these feminist theories and double standards at this point in my life. These are things I knew and believed inside of me but didn’t have the framework for. How fucked up is it that we’re not teaching this to people at an earlier age? I could’ve been so empowered and that boost of confidence could’ve happened so much earlier.”

Mix that above mentioned fucked up reality and the fact that Chicago’s Black and Brown youth are disproportionately affected by dating violence, unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and more, and you get the perfect storm of influence for Sexpectations.

While many Chicago teens receive some sort of sex education at school, those programs usually only last a few months and are often led by a science or physical educational teacher who’s two-timing as a sexual educator. For many students, it may be hard to create trust with that individual. Additionally, this common model fails to empower teens to have the difficult conversations surrounding, for example, condom use and STIs, that are so crucial to strengthening and maintaining community health.

Since its conception, Sexpectations has put on a series of workshops and partnered with organizations and institutions across the city such as Healthy Hood Chicago, DePaul University’s Code Name Jane student group, Building Girls to Women at BUILD Chicago, and more, to bring sexual health education workshops to the community. Now, Angela and her team are developing a virtual workshop that’s COVID-19 friendly. Angela is also working on making Sexpectations a non-profit, the first official step in the larger goal of engraving Sexpectations into a school’s culture.

 “In a perfect world, young people would be a lot better prepared for dating, relationships, and sex if there was a sexual health educator implanted in a school’s culture. Someone who can be the go-to person that teaches about age appropriate things like anatomy and consent, and get more into the nitty gritty as students age.”

When she’s not working on Sexpectations, Angela is either dancing, acting, or modeling. Formerly a Salsa and Latin Fusion instructor at Healthy Hood, she still dances whenever she can and is excited about taking part in the upcoming Raisas to Roots project, a live performance showcase that tells the story of Chicago Puerto Ricans. Look for that in Summer 2021.

Follow Angela on Instagram @lalaamorena and Sexpectations @sexpectationschi.