Teaching sex education in schools is highly contested for so many reasons. For all the resistance it faces, sexual education is crucial and characterizing it as life-saving is not hyperbole. Let’s talk about why it’s so highly contested and why it’s important for schools to teach children about sex, anatomy, reproduction, relationships and more that are classified under sex education.
Why people are against teaching sex education?
People are against children being taught sex education in school for a variety of reasons including:
- Fears that talking about sex will make kids want to have more sex
- Conservative cultural views and/or religious views
- The belief that parents have the primary responsibility for teaching their children about sex and school doing it undermines their authority
- Fears that talking to children about it will normalize certain behaviour like using contraception or abortion
- Personal discomfort or embarrassment because in many societies talking about sex is still taboo
- Fear that sex education is explicit and vulgar
- Lack of awareness of the benefits
The importance of teaching sex education
Teaching children sex education in school is critical. Good sex education is medically accurate, developmentally appropriate, and culturally relevant and provides skills that improve life outcomes and promote healthy sexual development. Sex education should include but is not limited to:
- Consent
- Healthy relationships
- Anatomy and physiology
- Adolescent sexual development
- Birth control and pregnancy prevention options
- Gender identity and expression
- Sexual orientation and Identity
Teens are having sex
Parents and educators are often under the impression that abstinence-only education works and that teenagers are not having sex. A very false impression. One CDC study in the US found that about 55% of male and female teens have had intercourse by the time they are 18 years old. With or without sex education, teens are sexually active and failing to provide them with key information only increases their risk of being harmed or harming others.
Arming them with information helps them practice safe sex should they choose to, while keeping in mind all the risks involved. Teens who want to have sex will do it and continue to do it, with or without access to formal sex ed. One study even found that students who participate in these programs delay the initiation of sexual intercourse, have fewer sex partners and have fewer experiences of unprotected sex and use condoms more for protection.
Exposes abuse
One of the biggest benefits of having uniform sex education in schools is it helps children identify and name abusive behaviour. It gives them the language should they ever need to report it. Sex educators online continue to report that during sex education classes, children who are being abused sometimes report that someone is doing something they have just been told should not be happening. Sex education helps reveal and expose abuse and abusers.
Same rules
One of the problems that come from leaving sex education to individual parents is you end up with a situation where there’s no uniform information. Consider something like consent which would be covered in a sex ed class. If there’s any ambiguity about what consent means, and there currently is because not enough people are even taught about it, then we have a problem.
As John Oliver says, “Sex is like boxing, if both people didn’t fully agree to participate, one of them is committing a crime.” Sex education cannot be left to individual parents because they have such varied beliefs and worldviews and if we’re going to interact with each other, we’re going to need consensus, a common understanding about something as crucial as sex. Plus, most parents are too uncomfortable talking about sex with their children because of a variety of reasons including culture and religion. We can’t take the risk that every parent will do it and do a good job of it.
Parents are often hesitant because they imagine their children being exposed to pornography when it’s more like instruction about what healthy relationships look like and what abuse looks like. It often focuses on giving them information about the risks involved in being sexually active and how to stay safe should they choose to be active. When it’s done early, consistently and by trained professionals, sex education leads to helps prevent unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). It helps prevent dating and intimate partner violence and child sex abuse. It also leads to an appreciation of sexual diversity and overall improved social/emotional learning.
Check out
Dangers Of Using Pornography As A Source Of Sexual Education
Issues Surrounding The Increasing Rates Of Teenage Pregnancies In Kenya
