The Birds and The Bees: A Fight for Comprehensive Sex Education
By: Cole Woody (he/him)
In a world where sex is natural, only a small percentage of Americans have received quality and comprehensive sexual education. One cannot completely protect themselves from threats unknown to them, thus I find it unreasonable for the responsibility of educating America’s youth on sex to fall solely on the shoulders of parents when the education system failed to adequately prepare them as well. To prevent this cycle from continuing, the American education system must be called to light for this error and adopt a more inclusive and comprehensive sex education.
Women’s Reproductive Health
In most sex-ed courses across the nation, the curriculum directly reflects the patriarchy by placing the focus on men’s sexual health above women’s. This can be seen when teachers portray sex as something only enjoyable for men in a heterosexual relationship or fail to touch on topics specific to women’s sexual health, such as menstruation. This lack of focus placed on women’s sexual health isn’t only problematic for the very women who should be educated about their bodies but also fails to address misconceptions adopted by members of the opposite sex about women’s sexual well-being. While many women at some point are educated to an extent about menstruation and how their bodies will change throughout puberty, society tells men that periods are “gross” and that to touch a menstruation product such as a packaged tampon is something worth gagging over. Misconceptions such as these often fail to be addressed in sex-ed classes and many times will even reinforce this negative stigma around women’s sexual health. In relationships that consist of members of the opposite sex, this can be particularly worrisome if both partners aren’t on the same page regarding each other’s sexual well-being and basic anatomy. Unless conversations are had regarding women’s sexual well-being to the same extent that men’s are then the current curriculum will continue to reflect America’s patriarchal system and place women’s pleasure and safety secondary to men’s.
Similar values are upheld when state curricula purposely ignore topics such as abortion and pregnancy. Abortion is often viewed as “too controversial” for children to be taught in schools, and yet the sentiment behind that argument is often rooted in religion rather than genuine concern for their children. In a world where Roe v. Wade no longer protects an individual’s freedom to seek out an abortion, shying away from talking about abortion is only leading to increasingly more teen girls finding unsafe ways to stop having a child once becoming pregnant. In households where abortion is highly stigmatized and disapproved of, pregnant teens may feel as if they have no other options due to not being properly educated about contraceptives such as condoms or birth control, being misinformed about pregnancy as a whole, and being unaware that alternatives like abortion pills exist. When you restrict access to information regarding abortions you don’t end abortions as a whole, you only make it so that those pregnant teens now feel as if they have to resort to unsafe alternatives to not face shame from their parents and/or community. Coryn Catanzaro’s series of sculptures depicting methods of unsafe abortions women have used in the past highlights not only the extreme lengths women are willing to go to not have an unwanted pregnancy but also how mortality rates are beginning to rise due to unsafe abortions. The longer this issue is left ignored, the greater an issue it will become. Furthermore, if pregnancy and abortion were given greater importance in sex-ed courses, teen pregnancy rates would likely decrease after being made aware of contraceptives, and the stigma around teen pregnancies would be greatly reduced. When something such as teen pregnancy is omitted from sex-ed curricula it only becomes further stigmatized and shames those who may have never had a choice in the matter.
Even when discussing matters as simple as menstruation, curricula will choose to save such topics for students’ parents to teach them about “at home.” However, this shirking of responsibilities is not only dangerous but operates under the assumption that the student’s parents know more about periods than the student does. Furthermore, that information being taught to the student may not even be factually correct, basing their information on untrustworthy sources found on the internet or from their sex-ed courses that failed to educate them as well. When students aren’t properly educated about the fundamentals of women’s bodily processes, then the idea of women’s bodies being “just too complex to understand” is further emphasized in the minds of students across the nation. Menstruation is not a difficult topic to understand, it’s just that society has told generations of people since birth about men’s anatomy and purposefully ignored women’s, that whenever such processes are talked about for the first time in sex-ed courses the idea sounds foreign and difficult to understand. However, if given some time and taught comprehensively, then students may find that menstruation isn’t such a hard topic to understand after all.
Contraceptives vs Celibacy
Fearmongering when discussing the topic of sex has too often been the default for state curricula to use instead of teaching comprehensive sex-ed. In Texas, for example, sex is often regarded as a “taboo” topic to discuss in schools and instead, celibacy is promoted as a viable alternative. However, celibacy largely tries to scare kids out of having sex, by emphasizing the risk of becoming pregnant (without actually talking about the topic with nuance) and wrongfully portraying those with STIs and/or STDs as “dirty” or “unclean.” Celibacy-focused sexual education has been proven time and time again to be ineffective at preventing people from having sex, and yet the curriculum has failed to adapt or change as a whole. Therefore, methods of teaching sex-ed should be those that have scientifically proven to reduce unsafe sex and the presence of STIs and/or STDs amongst teens. These methods offer comprehensive sexual education that discusses in-depth topics regarding safe sex, contraception, treatments for STIs & STDs, etc. Overall, a comprehensive sexual education curriculum focuses more on providing realistic solutions to students having unsafe sex and less on shaming people into celibacy.
Additionally, celibacy often operates as a self-made form of purity politics that ranks those that haven’t had sex above those who have. One way that many celibacy courses will implement this social hierarchy is by using negative rhetoric when discussing people that have had sex in the past, specifically women. No matter if it’s discrete or obvious, celibacy courses will implement forms of slut-shaming to place women beneath men, even if the two have never had sex before. Celibacy courses will wrongfully label women who have had sex as “impure” and men who have had sex as just “fulfilling a natural desire.” This double standard seeks not only to oppress women in and outside of the classroom but sets a dangerous social norm for the students to uphold in their lives later on. One example of this manifesting in life outside of a sex-ed classroom is the constant battle women have to fight against being slut shamed or being labeled as a “tease” after refusing a man’s attempt to have sex with them. This is a state of constant loss for women where men reinforce the patriarchy outside of classrooms and guilts women into having sex with them. This idea is extremely problematic, and if not addressed and condemned within sex-ed classrooms, then such behaviors can continue uninterrupted, leading to countless women becoming victims to a man who has been taught that women are objects of desire and beneath him. Sex should be the choice of all consenting parties. The moment one party is guilted or coerced into having sex with the other, the sex is no longer consensual and is classified as rape.
Informed Consent
No. Two letters make up one of the very first words that we’re taught after we learn how to speak. This word holds power. However, current sexual education curricula have made this word appear meaningless in the grand scheme of sex. The most important thing that should be taught both inside and outside of sex-ed classrooms is informed consent. This means that both parties agree to everything that is about to occur between the two, explicitly telling each other that they are willing to have sex with each other, that either party is aware of each other’s STD & STI status, and any other information relevant to one’s safety during sex. Consent cannot be assumed just because your partner never said no. The absence of no does not mean yes. For consent to be valid, either party has to create an environment where the two are open to discussing what they are and aren’t okay with and make sure to not create a hostile environment where one party is afraid to voice their mind out of fear of the other’s reaction. These are the basics of informed consent and yet many have not been taught this within their sex-ed classes.
Consent is the precursor to anything sexual, without consent, you no longer are a willing participant and potentially become a victim of harassment, assault, or rape. In order to best prevent the possibility of someone becoming a victim of another person’s unwanted sexual advances, consent needs to be emphasized as an absolute must before proceeding with anything sexual between two or more parties. In addition to saying yes, how someone consents can be very telling of whether they meant it or not. And if there is ever a time where you may be uncertain whether your partner is actually consenting or is instead just saying yes to make you happy, do not proceed with anything sexual and instead have a discussion focused on how the other party actually feels. It might just be a pause or even a slight hesitation, and that should be all it takes for you to take a step back and reassess the situation. Furthermore, consent can be taken back. Just because someone agreed to your initial sexual advancement doesn’t mean that you have permission to violate their previously set boundaries. If someone no longer feels comfortable during sex and tells the other party to stop then that other party must stop going any further as the sexual interaction is no longer consensual. Being conscious of your partner’s responses and having informed consent between both parties is the first step to safe sex.
Excluding the LGBTQIA+ Community
Current forms of sexual education in America largely ignore or purposefully discriminate against members of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2013, a study conducted by GLSEN concluded that less than 5% of students who identified as queer reported having experienced a health class that presented queer sex-ed in a positive light. Furthermore, currently, 7 states (Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas) allow instructors to actively condemn homosexuality within sex-ed courses or push for heterosexuality to be the norm. So while efforts to increase the quality of sexual education may appear overall positive at face value, such initiatives often do very little for students with same-sex attraction as current forms of Sex-Ed are largely focused on heterosexual relationships and exclude other sexualities.
Although 43 states currently allow or have no restrictions against teaching queer sex-ed. the time period in which these classes are held is crucial when seeking to have a positive impact on queer students. The Journal of Sex Research concluded that, on average, most sexual interactions between gay men who are members of a racial minority have their first sexual interaction at the age of 14 or 15 years old. Thus, queer sex education would optimally be taught either in grades 6th or 7th as a preventative measure towards decreasing the risks associated with unsafe sexual interactions. Initiatives aimed at preventing same-sex sexual relations till the age of 18 or preaching celibacy as an ideal solution fail to realistically address the issues associated with unsafe sexual relations, and overall have been proven to be ineffective.
While some sex-ed classes cover STDs and STIs, the portrayal of individuals affected by HIV/AIDS often focuses more on furthering the stigma of living with HIV than it does on discussing prevention or treatment options. The 1980s HIV/AIDS epidemic wreaked catastrophic damage across the queer community with 10% of the 1.6 million gay men at the time having died from the virus. Furthermore, misinformation campaigns were conducted across the nation, painting HIV as a “Gay STI”, going as far as to even call gay men pedophiles, and shaming anyone, regardless of their sexual identity, who had HIV/AIDS. These initiatives still have an impact in our classrooms today with HIV being portrayed as only affecting gay men when in actuality anyone participating in sexual relations can contract the virus. Due to a lack of information being taught about HIV prevention, the queer community is disproportionately affected by HIV, and current systems push silence in place of seeking help, thus leading to millions across the nation failing to access treatment due to stigmatization.
For decades the idea of catching HIV/AIDS was portrayed as a death sentence, but breakthroughs in medicine have made it so that those who contract HIV are still just as capable of living a fulfilled life as their non-HIV positive peers. Medications such as PREP can aid in decreasing the potential of catching HIV during sex along with physical barriers like condoms, and treatments such as antiretroviral therapy (ART) exist to help those with HIV live longer and better lives. However, current sexual education courses fail to cover such topics, allowing for HIV to be increasingly stigmatized and portraying innocent individuals as sexual deviants for contracting a virus they didn’t knowingly receive.
Resources
Navigating sexual education, especially after learning how your sex-ed classes failed to adequately prepare you for later in life, can be a daunting task. However, there are sources available to you that make traversing such a path less scary. Common resources that provide a comprehensive and inclusive outlook on sex-ed can be found at the following organizations’ websites: Planned Parenthood, GLSEN, Scarleteen, Center for Young Woman’s Health, Center for Young Men’s Health, and more! Never fail to be critical of the sources you find online and question the advice given to you by people with no research to back up their points.
Final Thoughts
The discussion regarding sexual education is long from being over. It isn’t something that just stops in middle or high school, but rather should be an ongoing conversation where we come together to fight for a more inclusive and comprehensive sexual education. Just because the current system in place has failed us, doesn’t mean that it has to continue to stay flawed and hurt generations beyond your own. A comprehensive and inclusive sex-ed curriculum is an achievable goal and already exists in states across the nation. We all must play a part in normalizing the discussion of sex and help remove the stigma making such discussions taboo.
Women’s Reproductive Health
In most sex-ed courses across the nation, the curriculum directly reflects the patriarchy by placing the focus on men’s sexual health above women’s. This can be seen when teachers portray sex as something only enjoyable for men in a heterosexual relationship or fail to touch on topics specific to women’s sexual health, such as menstruation. This lack of focus placed on women’s sexual health isn’t only problematic for the very women who should be educated about their bodies but also fails to address misconceptions adopted by members of the opposite sex about women’s sexual well-being. While many women at some point are educated to an extent about menstruation and how their bodies will change throughout puberty, society tells men that periods are “gross” and that to touch a menstruation product such as a packaged tampon is something worth gagging over. Misconceptions such as these often fail to be addressed in sex-ed classes and many times will even reinforce this negative stigma around women’s sexual health. In relationships that consist of members of the opposite sex, this can be particularly worrisome if both partners aren’t on the same page regarding each other’s sexual well-being and basic anatomy. Unless conversations are had regarding women’s sexual well-being to the same extent that men’s are then the current curriculum will continue to reflect America’s patriarchal system and place women’s pleasure and safety secondary to men’s.
Similar values are upheld when state curricula purposely ignore topics such as abortion and pregnancy. Abortion is often viewed as “too controversial” for children to be taught in schools, and yet the sentiment behind that argument is often rooted in religion rather than genuine concern for their children. In a world where Roe v. Wade no longer protects an individual’s freedom to seek out an abortion, shying away from talking about abortion is only leading to increasingly more teen girls finding unsafe ways to stop having a child once becoming pregnant. In households where abortion is highly stigmatized and disapproved of, pregnant teens may feel as if they have no other options due to not being properly educated about contraceptives such as condoms or birth control, being misinformed about pregnancy as a whole, and being unaware that alternatives like abortion pills exist. When you restrict access to information regarding abortions you don’t end abortions as a whole, you only make it so that those pregnant teens now feel as if they have to resort to unsafe alternatives to not face shame from their parents and/or community. Coryn Catanzaro’s series of sculptures depicting methods of unsafe abortions women have used in the past highlights not only the extreme lengths women are willing to go to not have an unwanted pregnancy but also how mortality rates are beginning to rise due to unsafe abortions. The longer this issue is left ignored, the greater an issue it will become. Furthermore, if pregnancy and abortion were given greater importance in sex-ed courses, teen pregnancy rates would likely decrease after being made aware of contraceptives, and the stigma around teen pregnancies would be greatly reduced. When something such as teen pregnancy is omitted from sex-ed curricula it only becomes further stigmatized and shames those who may have never had a choice in the matter.
Even when discussing matters as simple as menstruation, curricula will choose to save such topics for students’ parents to teach them about “at home.” However, this shirking of responsibilities is not only dangerous but operates under the assumption that the student’s parents know more about periods than the student does. Furthermore, that information being taught to the student may not even be factually correct, basing their information on untrustworthy sources found on the internet or from their sex-ed courses that failed to educate them as well. When students aren’t properly educated about the fundamentals of women’s bodily processes, then the idea of women’s bodies being “just too complex to understand” is further emphasized in the minds of students across the nation. Menstruation is not a difficult topic to understand, it’s just that society has told generations of people since birth about men’s anatomy and purposefully ignored women’s, that whenever such processes are talked about for the first time in sex-ed courses the idea sounds foreign and difficult to understand. However, if given some time and taught comprehensively, then students may find that menstruation isn’t such a hard topic to understand after all.
Contraceptives vs Celibacy
Fearmongering when discussing the topic of sex has too often been the default for state curricula to use instead of teaching comprehensive sex-ed. In Texas, for example, sex is often regarded as a “taboo” topic to discuss in schools and instead, celibacy is promoted as a viable alternative. However, celibacy largely tries to scare kids out of having sex, by emphasizing the risk of becoming pregnant (without actually talking about the topic with nuance) and wrongfully portraying those with STIs and/or STDs as “dirty” or “unclean.” Celibacy-focused sexual education has been proven time and time again to be ineffective at preventing people from having sex, and yet the curriculum has failed to adapt or change as a whole. Therefore, methods of teaching sex-ed should be those that have scientifically proven to reduce unsafe sex and the presence of STIs and/or STDs amongst teens. These methods offer comprehensive sexual education that discusses in-depth topics regarding safe sex, contraception, treatments for STIs & STDs, etc. Overall, a comprehensive sexual education curriculum focuses more on providing realistic solutions to students having unsafe sex and less on shaming people into celibacy.
Additionally, celibacy often operates as a self-made form of purity politics that ranks those that haven’t had sex above those who have. One way that many celibacy courses will implement this social hierarchy is by using negative rhetoric when discussing people that have had sex in the past, specifically women. No matter if it’s discrete or obvious, celibacy courses will implement forms of slut-shaming to place women beneath men, even if the two have never had sex before. Celibacy courses will wrongfully label women who have had sex as “impure” and men who have had sex as just “fulfilling a natural desire.” This double standard seeks not only to oppress women in and outside of the classroom but sets a dangerous social norm for the students to uphold in their lives later on. One example of this manifesting in life outside of a sex-ed classroom is the constant battle women have to fight against being slut shamed or being labeled as a “tease” after refusing a man’s attempt to have sex with them. This is a state of constant loss for women where men reinforce the patriarchy outside of classrooms and guilts women into having sex with them. This idea is extremely problematic, and if not addressed and condemned within sex-ed classrooms, then such behaviors can continue uninterrupted, leading to countless women becoming victims to a man who has been taught that women are objects of desire and beneath him. Sex should be the choice of all consenting parties. The moment one party is guilted or coerced into having sex with the other, the sex is no longer consensual and is classified as rape.
Informed Consent
No. Two letters make up one of the very first words that we’re taught after we learn how to speak. This word holds power. However, current sexual education curricula have made this word appear meaningless in the grand scheme of sex. The most important thing that should be taught both inside and outside of sex-ed classrooms is informed consent. This means that both parties agree to everything that is about to occur between the two, explicitly telling each other that they are willing to have sex with each other, that either party is aware of each other’s STD & STI status, and any other information relevant to one’s safety during sex. Consent cannot be assumed just because your partner never said no. The absence of no does not mean yes. For consent to be valid, either party has to create an environment where the two are open to discussing what they are and aren’t okay with and make sure to not create a hostile environment where one party is afraid to voice their mind out of fear of the other’s reaction. These are the basics of informed consent and yet many have not been taught this within their sex-ed classes.
Consent is the precursor to anything sexual, without consent, you no longer are a willing participant and potentially become a victim of harassment, assault, or rape. In order to best prevent the possibility of someone becoming a victim of another person’s unwanted sexual advances, consent needs to be emphasized as an absolute must before proceeding with anything sexual between two or more parties. In addition to saying yes, how someone consents can be very telling of whether they meant it or not. And if there is ever a time where you may be uncertain whether your partner is actually consenting or is instead just saying yes to make you happy, do not proceed with anything sexual and instead have a discussion focused on how the other party actually feels. It might just be a pause or even a slight hesitation, and that should be all it takes for you to take a step back and reassess the situation. Furthermore, consent can be taken back. Just because someone agreed to your initial sexual advancement doesn’t mean that you have permission to violate their previously set boundaries. If someone no longer feels comfortable during sex and tells the other party to stop then that other party must stop going any further as the sexual interaction is no longer consensual. Being conscious of your partner’s responses and having informed consent between both parties is the first step to safe sex.
Excluding the LGBTQIA+ Community
Current forms of sexual education in America largely ignore or purposefully discriminate against members of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2013, a study conducted by GLSEN concluded that less than 5% of students who identified as queer reported having experienced a health class that presented queer sex-ed in a positive light. Furthermore, currently, 7 states (Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas) allow instructors to actively condemn homosexuality within sex-ed courses or push for heterosexuality to be the norm. So while efforts to increase the quality of sexual education may appear overall positive at face value, such initiatives often do very little for students with same-sex attraction as current forms of Sex-Ed are largely focused on heterosexual relationships and exclude other sexualities.
Although 43 states currently allow or have no restrictions against teaching queer sex-ed. the time period in which these classes are held is crucial when seeking to have a positive impact on queer students. The Journal of Sex Research concluded that, on average, most sexual interactions between gay men who are members of a racial minority have their first sexual interaction at the age of 14 or 15 years old. Thus, queer sex education would optimally be taught either in grades 6th or 7th as a preventative measure towards decreasing the risks associated with unsafe sexual interactions. Initiatives aimed at preventing same-sex sexual relations till the age of 18 or preaching celibacy as an ideal solution fail to realistically address the issues associated with unsafe sexual relations, and overall have been proven to be ineffective.
While some sex-ed classes cover STDs and STIs, the portrayal of individuals affected by HIV/AIDS often focuses more on furthering the stigma of living with HIV than it does on discussing prevention or treatment options. The 1980s HIV/AIDS epidemic wreaked catastrophic damage across the queer community with 10% of the 1.6 million gay men at the time having died from the virus. Furthermore, misinformation campaigns were conducted across the nation, painting HIV as a “Gay STI”, going as far as to even call gay men pedophiles, and shaming anyone, regardless of their sexual identity, who had HIV/AIDS. These initiatives still have an impact in our classrooms today with HIV being portrayed as only affecting gay men when in actuality anyone participating in sexual relations can contract the virus. Due to a lack of information being taught about HIV prevention, the queer community is disproportionately affected by HIV, and current systems push silence in place of seeking help, thus leading to millions across the nation failing to access treatment due to stigmatization.
For decades the idea of catching HIV/AIDS was portrayed as a death sentence, but breakthroughs in medicine have made it so that those who contract HIV are still just as capable of living a fulfilled life as their non-HIV positive peers. Medications such as PREP can aid in decreasing the potential of catching HIV during sex along with physical barriers like condoms, and treatments such as antiretroviral therapy (ART) exist to help those with HIV live longer and better lives. However, current sexual education courses fail to cover such topics, allowing for HIV to be increasingly stigmatized and portraying innocent individuals as sexual deviants for contracting a virus they didn’t knowingly receive.
Resources
Navigating sexual education, especially after learning how your sex-ed classes failed to adequately prepare you for later in life, can be a daunting task. However, there are sources available to you that make traversing such a path less scary. Common resources that provide a comprehensive and inclusive outlook on sex-ed can be found at the following organizations’ websites: Planned Parenthood, GLSEN, Scarleteen, Center for Young Woman’s Health, Center for Young Men’s Health, and more! Never fail to be critical of the sources you find online and question the advice given to you by people with no research to back up their points.
Final Thoughts
The discussion regarding sexual education is long from being over. It isn’t something that just stops in middle or high school, but rather should be an ongoing conversation where we come together to fight for a more inclusive and comprehensive sexual education. Just because the current system in place has failed us, doesn’t mean that it has to continue to stay flawed and hurt generations beyond your own. A comprehensive and inclusive sex-ed curriculum is an achievable goal and already exists in states across the nation. We all must play a part in normalizing the discussion of sex and help remove the stigma making such discussions taboo.