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Sex Ed

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
It’s come up in several threads that current human sexuality education sucks. Why does it suck? What can be done about it? What would the ideal human sexuality course teach?
 
I am a health professional with a 16 yr. old daughter. In an ideal world, parents should responsible for providing information about sexuality - both the morals and the science of sex. Unfortunately, that is not happening....sometimes because the parents are uncomfortable with the topic, too busy, and sometimes because they, themselves have never been educated beyond their own personal experience.

The information presented in the school district I live in is grossly inaccurate and is fear-based. My daughter has been told that birth control pills will killyou and that condoms do not work. In essence, my daughter's school district has told her that abstinence is the only way to prevent pregnancy and disease and that all other methods are doomed to failure. How do you think this type of information will be useful when and if she marries?

This abstinence-only approach believes that by frightening teens, teens will less likely engage in pre-marital sex. This is very unfortunate for two reasons:
1. Many teens have a false sense of security...that "it won't happen to me". They are dealing with alot of hormonal changes as well as increasing societal pressures. Some teens will not heed the advice of their elders to remain abstinent.....Should we withhold knowledge from them that may actually prevent pregnancy and/or disease as a punishment? Does a teen deserve ruining his/her life because they disobeyed the moral teaching of the society? I would be furious to learn of my daughter having pre-marital sex but I would'nt want her to become pregnant, get sick or die from her promiscuity.

2. Abstinence is the only 100% method of birth control and disease prevention but teaching abstinence only is not viable if we are truly trying to educate our children about sexuality. Sex is a very healthy and natural part of being human and it is a very important part of human relationships. Excluding and/or distorting information regarding birth control and disease prevention (other than abstinence) does little to prepare teens for adulthood and, most specifically, for marriage. Why should we, withhold information that would be useful to individuals in adulthood?

The problem is compounded by the fact that certain groups not only want sexuality information withheld from their children which, as their parents, they have every right to but they also want the same information to be withheld from all children. The school district is in the middle and tries to walk a very thin line hoping to avoid controversy and lawsuits.
 

pegan

Member
Well, as I'm fairly sure I'm younger than many of you and went through said sex ed classes more recently, I can most definitely agree with the statement that they are at an unsatisfactory level.

Yes, they tried to scare us. They enforced "abstinence only!" and showed us slides of mutilated reproductive organs. And it still didn't work. Why?

The woman teaching the class was-if I remember correctly-in her early sixties. Not many of the students in the class were willing to take things in for this generation from the "silly old woman."

Not only that, but yes, they do make us think that all birth control options are doomed to failure--and harmful to the user. So what happens? They don't use them, or use them sparingly and incorrectly.

Sex is a healthy thing, and eventually it'll happen. I'd suggest to them that rather than giving us the cryptic, yet sugar coated "Wait until marriage and it'll be special! Otherwise, you die!" that they give us facts from both perspectives-the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.

~*Pegan*~
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Pegan,

Even though that "silly old woman" failed to sell your class on abstinence, it seems she sold your class on having contempt or indifference to contraceptives. That's a shame. It seems to me that she acted immorally. What do you think?
 

pegan

Member
Indeed she acted incorrectly, if not immorally. She basically tried to force the view to us that sex before marriage is wrong, sinful even. That's just not the world we live in today.

I admit, you've got to be careful, but being so cryptic and against something that's healthy and natural....she just didn't have us convinced.

As I said, they need to tell us everything, not just fairy tale marriage stories.

~*Pegan*~
 

Bastet

Vile Stove-Toucher
I find it surreal to hear about "teachers" not teaching their students the essentials. I remember sex ed. when I was in school...going back about 15 or 16 years here now. Yes, as teenagers we s******ed and laughed at all the 'naughty stuff' we were being shown and taught. But by the end of that, we knew the ins and outs of both the male and female anatomy, we knew about every form of birth control (from the Pill, to condoms, to IUD's etc. and yes, abstinence was included). We'd watched a video of a woman giving birth (if that's not enough to put a 13 year old off sex, I don't know what is :lol: ). Not everyone took heed of all they were taught, true - but at least all were informed.

The "sex education" I got from my mother, was the mysterious appearance of a book on my bed, called 'Where Did I Come From?'. Then, a year or so later, another book in a brown paper bag appeared on my bed, this one called 'What's Happening To Me?'. :roll: We didn't talk about anything that was in those books...it was left up to me to read them and take it all in. Many kids get even less education than that, from their parents. The schools need to worry less about who they might offend, and just teach the facts, folks. :wink:

On a side note, by the time I left school, they were pushing for condom vending machines in the toilets at my school. I believe they are now installed, and very few are used as water balloons. :smile: So many people said it would encourage kids to have sex, but the fact is, all it encourages kids to do is have safer sex than they would have already been having. You can't stamp out teen sex entirely...it just ain't gonna happen, regardless of whether you keep kids in the dark about sex or not.

Well, shoot...I've rambled a bit...it's 5am and I have to go to work now lol...
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Sometime ago, I read that when girls at a certain high school were asked to evaluate their human sexuality course, the number one complaint was that it was too much oriented towards the mechanics of sexuality – towards anatomy, physiology, biology, etc. When asked what was missing, the high school girls said that they wanted to know “how to talk with boys.”

When I first read that, I thought it was exactly the sort of inane thing you might expect high school girls to say. I mean, “talk with boys”??!! Who ever heard of a human sexuality course designed to teach students how to talk with boys?

But I’ve since re-thought that a bit. What those girls were getting at, I believe, was that their course lacked anything to do with courtship. The course taught the mechanics of the sex act, but it didn’t teach anything about the courtship that (sometimes) leads up to the sex act. And courtship is important.

A team of three scientists a while back reported that they had discovered a nearly one to one correspondence between a dysfunctional courtship and a dysfunctional marriage. Put differently, if the courtship is dysfunctional, the marriage is almost certain to be dysfunctional too. And by “dysfunctional”, those scientists meant everything from common unhappiness through abuse and divorce.

So, given the importance of a good courtship to a good marriage, shouldn’t sex ed classes teach something about courtship?
 

pegan

Member
I most definitely think so. However, to my sex ed teacher, all was physical, and all was wrong. You had to wait until said dysfunctional marriage to reach that point.

I most definitely would've liked knowing "how to talk with boys." I'm bisexual, but obviously, I know the female mind a bit more than I do a male's. I can tell you right now, it would've helped greatly!

~*Pegan*~
 
I believe it essential to help teens develop the tools to stand up to peer pressure, be assertive and learn methods of saying "no" whether it be pre-marital sex, drugs, etc;
 

dolly

Member
The problem with my sex ed class in school was that they didn't go into enough detail. They rushed through it in a month, told us not to do it, showed us birth control methods, mentioned STD's, etc. They didn't go into enough detail. They didn't tell us specifically what the STD's do to you, what they look like, how dangerous they are, (except HIV), etc. They don't show us how to use the birth control methods. They don't show the girls what it's like to give birth via a movie. etc.
 

Irenicas

high overlord of sod all
I felt priviledged to have such a good sex ed class at my school. I am only 18, and so I went through sex ed very recently (remember I live in the UK so this may be a little different). We were not only taught the physical side of the act itself, along with the different kinds of preventions (not including abstinence), we were also taught about what homosexuality and bisexuality actually were -there were a suprising number of students who didn't know. We were given ideas about how to cope with the emotional side of it too. All in all, excellent.
 

Ardhanariswar

I'm back!
i think sex ed is good. i mean, parents rarely talk about it. my parents were like "you are not the right age, go away" haha. thats it basically. but i would have been very ignorant if not for the sex ed classes. lol. i thought men and women had penises until sixth grade.
 

dolly

Member
Yeah, I've never met someone whose parents actually talked about it with them. I got a cartoon book titled "Where Babies Come From." If it wasn't for health class, I wouldn't even know that STDs existed. Even then, I don't know that much about STDs.
 

Pah

Uber all member
My parents' contribution was a book written by Pat Boone (anyone remember that far back?) No discussion, no guidance on anything related to the opposite sex.
 

Bastet

Vile Stove-Toucher
Well...as much as I mock those books Mum left on my bed, they weren't nearly as bad as the one her mother left on her bed. It was written in the early 60s, and was called 'Everything a Teenage Girl Should Know'...and it was an absolute pisser to read in this day and age! I think she still has it around somewhere...it was great for a laugh lol. Covered such things as (gasp) "heavy petting", and was all for abstinence. I think they had one along the same line for boys too.:p
 

Irenicas

high overlord of sod all
hehe hehe. Any ideas how to track down a copy - sounds perfect as an appendix for a paper I am writing about censorship.
 

Sam Bloom

Member
One of the problems with Sex Ed, is that sex education is pretty much hampered by "religious right" nutmegs, who want nothing taught but abstinence, and no more, even though research has shown that a balanced curriculum is better. While abstinence programs are pushed as trying to cut down on disease and pregnancy. They are often presented in such a way that trys to make sex out as a dirty thing.
The programs are administered by mostly ladies, with their hair in a bun, who probably only have sex in the dark, in one position, if they ever have, and have their head so far up there gazooka, that they are totally out of touch with reality. The school teachers who must teach it, are limited to the extent, that they are scared to answer even the simplest legitimate questions, and just have to say, "Abstinence is the best policy" Good grief it's little wonder kids are disillusioned with the sex ed program. Frankly I think kids are really doing pretty good, considering how much sex they are bombarded with.
Maybe if we can get a presidential administration in that has a clue, something can be done on the federal level to require mandatory, good informative sex ed.
While saying that it should be the job of the parents, sounds good. It is laughable, because there are too many idiotic ignorant parents who don't have a clue, and themselves are so sexually impaired that they can't even mention the word "sex".
 

Ceridwen018

Well-Known Member
The programs are administered by mostly ladies, with their hair in a bun, who probably only have sex in the dark, in one position, if they ever have, and have their head so far up there gazooka, that they are totally out of touch with reality.
Hahahahahahahahaha!

I agree with you Sam. I think it is important to teach abstinence, so that kids realize it's perfectly alright to not have sex, but abstinence as a one and only is a recipe for disaster.
 
My major concern is not with sex ed being taught, but, as many of you have stated, with the quality of the information. And the manner in which it is presented. That's all been covered here.
What bothers me is that some schools are teaching it to kids that are entirely too young to even have a clue what is going on. I bet a dollar my 9 year old nephew could rattle off the names of more STDs than I can. And up until his sex ed class he still thought it was for peeing. A wee bit early, I think.
If someone is going to teach it that young it should bloody well be the parents. Because that is a BIG call.
 
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