Sex Ed

I was excited to see the presentation on sex ed this week because it's a topic that I am very interested in and have done research on. I went to Catholic school from kindergarten through high school and had a very incomplete sexual education. As a young girl, I remember being jealous of my friends who had more extensive sex ed classes, including division of their class into boys and girls to go over specific topics. All of my friends thought it was embarrassing and uncomfortable, but I was curious. I don't think my sexual education was awful, but I don't think it did nearly enough to prepare me and my classmates to make smart decisions regarding sex.

I think one problem with sex ed is that parents want to protect their children and don't want to expose them to sex when they are young. This is a reasonable worry because the job of a parent is to protect his or her child. At the same time, the job of a parent is also to prepare the child for his or her future and sex ed is an important aspect of this preparation. Teaching kids about sex will not make kids have sex. The truth is, kids are going to learn about sex, whether it's from their parents, their school, their church, the media, their friends, or some other source. From my experience, kids will have sex when they want to or when they think they are supposed to. A comprehensive sex ed program should prepare these kids to make good decisions. Going back to the discussion that we had during the presentation on gender and war, it's also important that sex ed includes the themes of sexual assault and rape. Boys and girls need to know what sexual assault and rape are. They also need to know that sex is a choice and should never be an obligation. Boys and girls need to know that there is no specific age when a person is ready to have sex. One of the biggest problems that I see with abstinence-only education is that it makes sex more important than it should be and it becomes a huge and exciting mystery that kids want to know more about, while at the same time it becomes a taboo subject.

It's impossible to completely shelter kids from sex without sheltering them from the world completely. I think the best way to prepare them for their sexual life is to be open and honest. Not all people make the right decisions and there will almost definitely always be kids that have sex before they're "ready". While having sex too early can cause harm, having sex without taking precautions (such as using a condom) can have even more harmful, permanent and life-altering consequences.