Gemma
I'm an 18-year-old atheist from England.
I think what people who believe that ignoring social problems will make them go away forget is that you don't have to understand sex to want it - or to have it. I agree that sex ed at school often sends out
confusing messages, but that's only because teachers are so frightened of irate parents trying to blame them for their child's mistakes. If a young person winds up pregnant or with an STD, then trying to use
public education as a scapegoat to escape their guilt does nothing to help the child.
Plenty of parents complain that they feel disconnected from their teenagers, that they "won't talk to them". Surely it's better young people learn from a responsible adult than some trial-and-error approach. I am jealous of those people who can talk to their parents about sex, and any other problems - that's good parenting. But for people like me, whose parents refused to talk to them, sex ed at school may be the only shot they get.
I learnt what sex was when I was 7 years old - by looking up nearly every related word in a dictionary. I think that's a sad way to learn about it; you can hardly consider that a well-rounded education. My parents are the sorts who refused to talk to me about the changes my body was going through because I was "too young to know about that yet". Which was clearly ridiculous. I was 12 when I got my first bra fitted, and I turned out to be a B-cup already. When my first period started, I was too afraid to tell my mum because for some reason I thought she would be cross with me. I coped for two before I ran out of supplies my school had given me and had to tell her - she showed me where the sanitary towels were and that was that. My body was changing too fast for their narrow minds to accept, so I simply had to cope by myself.
As for my sex ed from school, it was far from bad, despite being totally mechanical. It was very focussed on the actual physical act and nothing else. If you want to stop kids from having sex, I think a
holistic approach is needed, encompassing the emotional side of things. Not just the "this bit goes here". I know plenty of people who lost their virginity young (I mean, between 12 and 14 sort of age) and they
regretted not their age, neither the experience itself, nor the place, or anything - just the person they did it with.
Individual maturity should be valued more than age. I'm 18 - old enough to have sex legally - and I haven't, because I’m not in love with anyone. If I’d felt ready at 16, I would have done it. So long as you wake up the next morning and roll over to look at your partner and smile, then I reckon that's a
pretty good sign you made the right decision. A piece of paper and a band on gold guarantee very little as regards safe sex.
That's something I’ll remember about my sex ed teacher at school - she said, "Anyone can have sex, that bit is easy. Rabbits don't even notice it happening. Doing it right is what is difficult." Those three
sentences made me think more about sex than my mother, who calmly informed me that virgin marriages are the best kind. This coming from the woman who wouldn't talk to me for two days after I found the pill lying around on the side board - as though it was my fault she was sexually active.
I think sex is part of a healthy life, and a healthy fulfilling relationship with someone worthwhile. Sex education should, without any doubt in the world, be taught in schools. If we don't, we're headed
toward the dilemma Africa is facing with AIDs - ignoring Roman Catholic abstinence nonsense, and having unprotected sex.
It should be normal to discuss sex. And parents are free to have their input at home, as much as they choose. But, for crying out loud - ignoring problems do not make them go away, and people who are too weak to discuss such important lessons with their children, who are too immature to accept their children are growing up - people who run away from reality, these are the sort of people who shouldn't be having children anyway. Teach young people to responsible for themselves, and parents won't have to wrap them up in cotton wool in the first place.
To borrow a phrase from Francis Bacon: Knowledge is power.
Annette
Hi, My name's Annette I'm 21 and I live in Australia.
I had already pieced together most of the "sex talk" before I was eight. When I was six, me and my friend used to put socks down out undies and hump each other before we even knew what we were doing. my first educational experience was at a drive-in one evening with the family when I decided to go wonder off and see what was screening on the opposite side to our screen. This was a revolutionary moment for me. The movie was Lightning Jack - A comedy about two outlaws who just wanted to be wanted. There was some scene involving a mute black man, a sexually confident saloon girl and a saddle. I haven't watched the film since so my memory is most likely a bit blurry. But that pretty much gave me the information I needed to start piecing things together. I came to the conclusion that babies were made from a man's sweat when he has an intense need to hold a woman.
I've been pretty sexually aware ever since. So before knowing anything about erect penises and seamen and intercourse, I learned the key element behind it all. The want for another body/lust. My first sex-ed class was when I was 9, and it was purely puberty based, and well done. I think it's important for children to be taught sex-ed at school because not all parents are up for the job, and not all children are willing to be that open about their sexuality to their parents. We has sex-ed classes every year from what I can remember. We had a box where we could leave anonymous questions for them to be answered the the next class. I remember asking the teacher if we could get pregnant while on our period. That seemed to baffle her a bit coming from a 10 year old.
I didn't actually go through any sexual development until I was 12, and by then I'd been told all about different sanitary items, with and without wings! light vs. heavy etc etc. Out classes by the age of 12 were pretty much confirming knowledge about sexual development, and informing us about sexual intercourse in more detail. Previous years were pretty much "this goes in here, seamen comes out, travels along here meets the egg and BABY". In High school the pubescent education was over. It was from then on more like a sexually orientated biology lesson. Learning what develops at each stage of pregnancy. Shown different contraception methods, shown how to put condoms on, learned all the statistics, all about when people ovulate, hormone levels for both sexes. All in all a pretty good education.
Just recently I watched a television presentation called "Texas teenage virgins" and it scared the crap out of me! Here I am coming from a really well informed perspective and hearing how some of the kids weren't taught anything about sexual intercourse because abstinence is the best option. It's impossible to argue with that, but every body has hormones therefore everybody is susceptible to having sex so everyone should be educated on what they can arm them with to prevent things like STDs and pregnancy when abstinence fails. I'm now really keen to become a sex-Ed teacher. I believe there's a few gaps in our sexual education I could fix as well.
From my experience we're more likely to have sex when it's late at night or you're alone with someone of your sexual preference or you've been drinking or You've been watching a raunchy movie together or it's dark. Things easily avoided if you don't want to have sex. My life would have a been a bit less eventful if I didn't do a lot of those things.
But thanks to my education, I've never done anything as a teen I've regretted.
Daniel
I am 22 years old and I've had 2 sex-ed classes.
The first was in Bettendorf, Iowa and I was in 6th grade. I had moved there during my 5th grade year. The class I had was a comprehensive sex-ed class. I took it during the 2nd semester of that year. There are many things to say about this especially since I have a near-photographic memory.
Looking back, this class was a disservice for me. Long story short, it was too intense and I was not ready for such detailed information. At the end of the course I believe that I was addicted to sex and sexual thought.
The biggest reason why this class had such a negative impact on me could be pinned on one thing: posters. Specifically, posters of male and female genitalia. They were displayed on the wall of the classroom and I remember very clearly that I stared at the female one every day (I'm a guy if you haven't figured it out yet). This was the equivalent of looking at pornography everyday. Since guys are very easily visually stimulated in the 6th grade it's no wonder I turned out the way I did.
In my seventh grade year I moved to Sergeant Bluff, Iowa. I had a sex-ed course in the last part of my 8th grade year. This course was an abstinence-only class. Taking sex-ed the second time around was very different. I actually learned some things! It was a quarter long and they concentrated on the different stages of life rather than an intense focus on puberty like the first class did.
In both situations my parents did not talk to me beforehand at all. When they signed the permission slip for my 6th grade year all they told me was, "You're going to be learning about how babies are made" and that was it.
Back then I was not comfortable with myself as a sexual being (it's ironic that most parents fear that of their child). In my house sex was a taboo. You just didn't talk about it. As a result I had no one to talk to when it came to my sexual or otherwise personal feelings.
To this day I despise them for not talking to me, even though I already knew about it. In high school my dad wanted me to see a therapist because of all the moving we've done (I've moved 7 times at this point) and also because of the fact that we weren't very close as a family. Many subjects were talked about but there was one that I kept coming back to and it was sexualality.
To come to the current day, I have thought a lot about this subject and have come to a conclusion. First, be open with your children about "personal" body parts when they're in grade school. Don't make sex or other related topics a taboo. Second, tell them about puberty before it happens (in other words before 5th or 6th grade). You don't have to talk about sex then but at least tell them what's going to happen (especially for girls). Third, the sex talk should take place between 5th grade and 8th grade. The easiest time would be when you tell them about puberty or sometime soon after that. From there keep the discussion open and encourage then to talk about it with yourself.
As for sex-ed classes, don't take a comprehensive course. Just don't. Abstinence is okay but comprehensive especially at 6th grade is way too much for children.
Best wished,
Daniel
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