Just like every other student at the New School, Liza Bley was given a $300 printing credit for her year-end project. But unlike her peers, Liza used her credit to publish Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf, a sex-ed comic book that revolutionizes the dusty genre.

Now a 23-year-old nanny, musician, craftswoman and Brooklynite, Bley knew her final project was going to have something to do with education…  but she didn’t know exactly what it was going to be. Flipping through a few sex-ed sources, she immediately found her focus. Everything she came across was, intentionally or not, rife with misogyny and homophobia. “Even though we know how to say those words,” she says, “we still haven’t learned how to combat them within structures.”

To prepare, Liza interviewed several health professionals in New York and Philadelphia. Her research took her from New York’s Babeland (a well known adult toy store), to Rutgers University, interviewing people who’ve taught sex-ed, and those who have taken their classes. Somewhat surprisingly, she found that all the literature on sexual education was built on a hollow foundation: for all those pages of precautions and reels of film, there wasn’t a single actual story. “Personal sexual experience,” she says, “is not a narrative that’s shown anywhere in sex education.”

Liza posted fliers, announcing an open call for submissions. Stories came flooding in, from accounts of lost virginity, to dating  conservative Christians, worrying about weirdly shaped penises and drunken hook-ups. “They were so honest, and completely on topic,” says Liza, who was quite simply “blown away.”

Liza preserves the immediacy of her submissions by retaining their original format. Presenting information in the traditional “This Is What It Means To Be Transgender” monotone sucked the life from the vivid and direct experiences she was receiving. She uses, instead, a personal approach: “This is what that community meant to me… this was my experience in this relationship.” On the back of the book is the definitive one-liner: “Experiences, Not Answers.”

Thanks to the New School’s printing credit, Liza was able was able to create plenty of copies of the finished product. A year and a half later, Liza and Saiya Miller - an early contributor to the comic and a partner in the project - have delivered around 400 copies to health centers, LGBTQ support centers, and zine libraries throughout the country. For The Birds, a feminist collective in Brooklyn, and Microcosm, a well-known independent zine publishing company, have been featuring their comic as well. Readers are even encouraged to download the comic to print or pass it on to anyone they’d like.  “We’re pretty anti-copyright,” says Saiya.

The girls are now wrapping up the second issue on first sexual experiences. They liked the idea of firsts because they thought it was something that could encompass a wide spectrum of experiences, while remaining consistent. “It could be anything,” says Liza, even “the first time I did this for the millionth time.” The current selection ranges from first kiss stories, to first one-night stands… to the first time someone was paid for sex. Liza and Saiya also wanted to break from a linear way of thinking about sex and relationships, emphasizing growth instead. “It’s not the end after the first time you’ve had a penis inside of you,” they laughed.

Liza and Saiya say that the submissions are like a Christmas presents. Those neat little packages containing the intimate revelations of strangers are a constant surprise. Their favorite submissions are from people who think they can’t draw, or, even better, think they have no experience that would qualify for a comic. For those folks, the girls have one piece of advice: anything to do with sex has the potential for a great comic.

In the future, they hope that their book will be able to reach high school students. Perhaps in more handpicked form, it could end up in schools and health centers. True, Not Your Mother’s Meatloaf doesn’t have spelled-out lessons. But, it starts an honest conversation about sex.

This story is part of a series about everyday people and their not-always-everyday lives. If you would like to suggest someone for this column, please email tushayakovleva [at] gmail.com.