A massive sex study that includes 48 studies from the past 25 years up to the present, has found that students think their school-based sex education sucked.
The study, called “What do young people think about their school-based sex and relationship education?” was “a qualitative synthesis of young people’s views and experiences.”
Students who participated were aged 4–19, as well as adults under 25 who recalled their experiences of school-based sex ed.
Eligible studies originated from the UK, Ireland, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Iran, Brazil and Sweden.
Results: “The synthesis found that although sex is a potent and potentially embarrassing topic, schools appear reluctant to acknowledge this and attempt to teach SRE (Sex and Relationship Education) in the same way as other subjects. Young people report feeling vulnerable in SRE, with young men anxious to conceal sexual ignorance and young women risking sexual harassment if they participated.”
Another interesting take-away from the study was that “Schools appear to have difficulty accepting that some young people are sexually active, leading to SRE that is out of touch with many young people’s lives. Many people reported that SRE can be “negative, gendered and heterosexist.”They expressed dislike of their own teachers delivering SRE due to blurred boundaries, lack of anonymity, embarrassment and poor training.”
Yikes, since when did educators become such bad sex educators? We live in a culture completely saturated with sex, yet many adults are embarrassed to talk about sex with the people they are having sex with.
Conclusions: The study concluded that “SRE should be ‘sex-positive’ and delivered by experts. Schools should acknowledge that sex is a special subject with unique challenges, as well as the fact and range of young people’s sexual activity, otherwise young people will continue to disengage from SRE and opportunities for safeguarding and improving their sexual health will be reduced.”
It’s time to replace fear with knowledge. For instance, most girls in high school have never even heard of the “morning after” pill. It’s time to figure out how to talk to kids about about sex. If we don’t talk to them, some creep will.
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