Sex Education

Meaning of Sex Education: 

Sex education is instruction on issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexualreproduction, age of consent, reproductive health, reproductive rights, safe sex, birth control and sexual abstinence.

WHAT IS SEXUAL HEALTH EDUCATION?

Sex education is the provision of information about bodily development, sex, sexuality, and relationships, along with skills-building to help young people communicate about and make informed decisions regarding sex and their sexual health. Sex education should occur throughout a student’s grade levels, with information appropriate to students’ development and cultural background. It should include information about puberty and reproduction, abstinence, contraception and condoms, relationships, sexual violence prevention, body image, gender identity and sexual orientation. It should be taught by trained teachers. Sex education should be informed by evidence of what works best to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, but it should also respect young people’s right to complete and honest information. Sex education should treat sexual development as a normal, natural part of human development.

Sex education may be taught informally, such as when someone receives information from a conversation with a parent, friend, religious leader, or through the media. It may also be delivered through sex self-help authors, magazine advice columnists, sex columnists, or sex education web sites. Formal sex education occurs when schools or health care providers offer sex education. Slyer stated that sex education teaches the young person what he or she should know for his or her personal conduct and relationship with others. Gruenberg also stated that sex education is necessary to prepare the young for the task ahead. According to him, officials generally agree that some kind of planned sex education is necessary.

Sometimes formal sex education is taught as a full course as part of the curriculum in junior high school or high school. Other times it is only one unit within a more broad biology, health, home economics, or physical education class. Some schools offer no sex education, since it remains a controversial issue in several countries, particularly the United States (especially with regard to the age at which children should start receiving such education, the amount of detail that is revealed, including LGBT sex education, and topics dealing with human sexual behavior, e.g. safe sex practices, masturbation, premarital sex, and sexual ethics).

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Importance of Sex Education:

Sex education is very important most especially in the life of teenagers. Sex is a natural part of life, and it happens with or without sex education. 71% of American 19-year-olds have had intercourse. 99% of Americans will have sex in their lifetime. Only 20 states require sex and HIV education be taught in schools. Sex is a fundamental part of being human; but less than half of our states require sex and HIV education, and most of what is taught is sub-par. Just because we refuse to talk about sex doesn’t mean it's just going to go away.Sex education is important. It's been proven time and time again. We know students who receive formal sex education in schools are shown to first have sexual intercourse later than students who have not had sex education. Sex education does not encourage teenagers to have sex, it does quite the opposite. Every teenager should have sex education incorporated into their schooling. It shouldn’t be opt-in or opt-out but mandatory. Why should parents be able to opt their children in or out of a subject that they'll need later in life, one way or another? Sex education should be mandatory, comprehensive, medically accurate, and taught throughout student's school years, just like math. It's been shown to help students, not hurt. Not only is having access to sex education that is not only comprehensive but medically accurate a human right; it's our fundamental duty as a society to educate the next generation. Currently, we are failing.

Effective Sex Education:

Comprehensive Sex Education Is Effective, Does Not Promote Sexual Risks.

• Research has identified highly effective sex education and HIV prevention programs that affect multiple behaviors and/or achieve positive health impacts. Behavioral outcomes have included delaying the initiation of sex as well as reducing the frequency of sex, the number of new partners, and the incidence of unprotected sex, and/or increasing the use of condoms and contraception among sexually active participants. Long-term impacts have included lower STI and/or pregnancy rates.
• No highly effective sex education or HIV prevention education program is eligible for federal funding because mandates prohibit educating youth about the benefits of condoms and contraception.
• Evaluations of comprehensive sex education and HIV/ STI prevention programs show that they do not increase rates of sexual initiation, do not lower the age at which youth initiate sex, and do not increase the frequency of sex or the number of sex partners among sexually active youth.
• Between 1991 and 2004, the U.S. teen birth rate fell from 62 to 41per 1,000 female teens. Some experts attribute 75 percent of the decline to increased contraceptive use and 25 percent to delayed initiation of sex. Others credit increased contraceptive use and delayed initiation of sex about equally. Regardless, contraceptive use has been critical to reducing teenage pregnancy.

Abstinence-Only Programs Are Dangerous, Ineffective, and Inaccurate.

The Society for Adolescent Medicine recently declared that “abstinence-only programs threaten fundamental human rights to health, information, and life.”

• According to Columbia University researchers, virginity pledge programs increase pledge-takers’ risk for STIs and pregnancy. The study concluded that 88 percent of pledge-takers initiated sex prior to marriage even though some delayed sex for a while. Rates of STIs among pledge-takers and non-pledgers were similar, even though pledge-takers initiated sex later. Pledge-takers were less likely to seek STI testing and less likely to use contraception when they did have sex.
• Evaluations of the effectiveness of state-funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs found no delay in first sex. In fact, of six evaluations that assessed short-term changes in behavior, three found no changes, two found increased sexual activity from pre- to post-test, and one showed mixed results. Five evaluations looked for but found no long-term impact in reducing teens’ sexual activity.
• Analysis of data from Youth Risk Behavior surveys found that sexual activity among high school youth declined significantly from 1991 to 1997, prior to large-scale funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, but changed little from 1999 to 2003 with federal funding of such programs.
• Analysis of federally funded abstinence-only curricula found that over 80 percent of curricula supported by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services contained false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health. Specifically, they conveyed:
• False information about the effectiveness of contraceptives;
• False information about the risks of abortion;
• Religious beliefs as scientific fact;
• Stereotypes about boys and girls as scientific fact; and
• Medical and scientific errors of fact.

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Medical Organizations, Parents, and the Public Support Comprehensive Sex Education

• The American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, American Medical Association, American Public Health Association, Institute of Medicine, and Society for Adolescent Medicine, among others, support comprehensive sex education, including education about both abstinence and also contraception and condoms.
• In one study, most American adults supported sex education that includes information about both abstinence and also contraception and condoms. In fact, 89 percent believed that it is important for young people to have information about contraception and prevention of STIs and that sex education should focus on how to avoid unintended pregnancy and STIs, including HIV.
• In another recent survey, 94 percent of adults and 93 percent of parents said that sex education should cover contraception. Only 15 percent of Americans wanted abstinence-only education taught in the classroom.

Characteristics of Effective Sex Education

Experts have identified critical characteristics of highly effective sex education and HIV/STI prevention education programs. Such programs:

1. Offer age- and culturally appropriate sexual health information in a safe environment for participants;
2. Are developed in cooperation with members of the target community, especially young people;
3. Assist youth to clarify their individual, family, and community values;
4. Assist youth to develop skills in communication, refusal, and negotiation;
5. Provide medically accurate information about both abstinence and also contraception, including condoms;
6. Have clear goals for preventing HIV, other STIs, and/or teen pregnancy;
7. Focus on specific health behaviors related to the goals, with clear messages about these behaviors;
8. Address psychosocial risk and protective factors with activities to change each targeted risk and to promote each protective factor;
9. Respect community values and respond to community needs;

Rely on participatory teaching methods, implemented by trained educators and using all the activities as designed.