Sex Education

I've heard many parents say that they should be able to choose if their child receives sex education in school and in some areas they can opt out. I think it is irresponsible of parents to shelter their child because if they don't receive proper information on contraception, consent, STDs, etc., their child is being put at risk. These parents are likely uncomfortable with the topic and are in denial about their child growing up, but avoiding the topic does not prevent them from being sexually active. Curriculum is developed by researchers, experts in the field, and teachers, and should be seen as more valuable than than a parent's opinion. The amount of misinformation that some adults have about sex is astounding. Also it's very sad when children hit puberty and feel scared or think that something is wrong with them because they didn't expect it.

Edit: As people have pointed out, there is a lot of variation in the quality of sex education depending on where you live. My point is for sex ed curriculums that are research based and regularly reviewed and updated by a team of researchers/teachers/etc. I can completely understand being uncomfortable with your child receiving outdated or politcally/religiously driven curriculum.

Thanks everyone for your opinions. I'll try to respond to everyone that has new ideas and award delta as applicable.

UPDATE ON MY VIEW:

I mainly stand with what I said but I think there should be some exceptions when opting out is acceptable. Many of you describe sex ed being inaccurate, sexist, etc., and I'm sorry you had those experiences. I believe that sex ed should be as value-free as possible and focus on the best current body of scientific research. Parents can choose to teach other beliefs outside of school but at least their children will have knowledge about puberty, contraception, consent, etc. if they don't learn that at home. However, based on listening to your stories, I believe that children should automatically get sex ed (like all other subjects) unless their parents choose to opt out under these conditions:

1. The parents have researched the sex ed curriculum in the area and spoken with the teacher who would deliver it and they still have concerns about a lack of scientific basis of the instruction. Let's keep in mind that sex ed varies by area and over time, so one bad experience does not mean the whole subject is messed up. The parents should be responsible for teaching sex ed and the child can show proof of bo

Common advocates for sex education have said that it delays first sexual contact and “risky” sex as well as transferring STDs.

However a review of the literature has found that this is absolutely not the case. In both LEDC’s like African countries and MEDC’s. (the U.K. for this analysis) https://www.cochrane.org/CD006417/INFECTN_school-based-interventions-preventing-hiv-sexually-transmitted-infections-and-pregnancy-adolescents

> In these trials, the educational programmes evaluated had no demonstrable effect on the prevalence of HIV (RR 1.03, 95% CI 0.80 to 1.32, three trials; 14,163 participants; low certainty evidence), or other STIs (herpes simplex virus prevalence: RR 1.04, 95% CI 0.94 to 1.15; three trials, 17,445 participants; moderate certainty evidence; syphilis prevalence: RR 0.81, 95% CI 0.47 to 1.39; one trial, 6977 participants; low certainty evidence). There was also no apparent effect on the number of young women who were pregnant at the end of the trial (RR 0.99, 95% CI 0.84 to 1.16; three trials, 8280 participants; moderate certainty evidence).

In the United States there has been a 20% increase in chlamydia since 2015, a 50% increase in gonorrhoea since 2015 and a 70% increase in syphilis of which congenital syphilis, the most dangerous variant increased 279% https://www.cdc.gov/std/statistics/2019/announcement.htm

The evidence that this may have in fact be exacerbated by sex education is particularly powerful when one considers that it is mainly adolescents who are fuelling this upsurge. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5856484/

Hey!

Sex and Sexual Education barely/never gets talked about in India. I'm a 26F who's been sexually active since the last 5 years. Whatever I've learned, has been from girl-friends, experience, porn (SEX IS 294739% DIFFERENT FROM PORN) and erotica novels

There are SO so many things I wish I knew before.....or wish I didn't have to learn from experience. Hence I've made this post for all my fellow women, men, and everyone in between.

This post is written from a woman's POV but I strongly advice everyone to read it regardless of gender and orientation.

Trigger warning - There are mentions of Sexual and mental trauma in this post. But specific points regarding them have NOT been mentioned and I hope to make a specific post about that one day Child and Sexual abuse COMPLETELY change a person's perspective of sex and it has to be dealt with appropriately. If you have been abused in any way, there are chances that it has changed/affected you and you don't even know.

Terminology -

Skinship - Any kind of sexual touching

Kissing - Lip to lip kissing

1st base - Boob/butt groping

2nd base - Groin groping

3rd base - Oral

Home run - Sex

Chapter 1 - When is the right time to start having sex

When you FEEL like it and when you are 100% sure.

The first time I had sex, it was crap. I wasn't sure if I wanted to have sex. I was confused about whether I was ready for the act, whether he was the one, whether I'd regret it later. (I went back to the hostel and cried)

And guess what? If you're having these kind of thoughts or doubts YOU ARE PROBABLY NOT READY.

Being nervous is normal. But being unsure or hesitant usually means you need more time.

Sex is as mental as physical (especially for women), what I mean by this is to PHYSICALLY enjoy sex, you need to be turned on MENTALLY.

If you are worried/not sure/not turned on, its not going to be as fun as its supposed to.

The above applies to all kinds of skinship.

Do it if you are ready and want to do it with the person. (both equally important)

Age usually doesn't matter BUT I strongly advice you to be older than 18 (no less than 16 please) because being sexually active does open up the chances of trauma and I would never wish my 16/17 year old self to experience the same things I did at 21+ (actually I wouldn't want ANYONE and ANY AGE to get trauma but as an older person I was better equipped to handle something like that)

My first relationship was in 10th sta

It is on Wowpresents+ unfortunately but god I wish I had this! Insta link included

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPB3U3tpkkc/?utm_medium=copy_link

Sorry if this isn’t the kind if thing thats usually posted here.

I had the very basic and shitty “have sex and you’ll get herpes, here’s a slideshow” high school health classes that taught me nothing about sex. I’m 23 and not terribly ignorant (I think) but I’d like to try and get my knowledge above the bare minimum. Like, I hadn’t even heard the word “cervix” until maybe last year. Does anyone have any recommendations where I could educate myself on the kind of thing? I feel like when it comes to women’s health I’d rather get everyones opinions because, as I’ve seen here, a lot of education out in the internet is uninformed and misogynistic.

If you gave noticed netflix has 2-3 posts related to sex education including the season 2 finale related in the last few days. So maybe we would get a trailer/release date for season 3 in June.

Hi,

I was thinking about sex ed and was pondering if it was a purely industrial invention, due to a divide between "natural observation" of sex in the wild such as between animals and human life which can exist without seeing the natural world such as in a city. So, it seemed to me that sexual education had to arise by necessity of removing man from nature, but this also seemed overly simplistic. So I wanted to know if "sexual education" really did exist for pre-modern societies and how it existed as a role.

Do you remember watching the Health and Puberty videos in school in 5th or 6th grade?

Was it useful? Do you wish your parents made you skip it? Did you wish your parents told you something before or after watching the videos?

What questions did you have after watching them?

Mine did not. My mom taught me about periods but didn't explain anything about sex. She vaguely alluded to the existence of some mechanism that caused pregnancy but that's about it. She also had me pulled out middle school sex ed, so in 7th and 8th grade I had to kind of ask around and use the internet to figure it out. :D

What about you?

I'm female, asexual and turned 17 in April. I am taking my second class of health so I can graduate and was looking forward to all the new knowledge of how to take care of your self and to continue into adulthood ect. Then I find out its not just that healthyness in food and exercise.

Here comes sex Ed, this was my breaking moment in my relationship with sex, I never told anyone how badly it made me feel talking about it or how much it hurt. I ended up being able to ignore most of the lectures but the one about how sprem is stored I ended up getting really sick and vomiting because he showed pictures. But then he gives out a test with pictures of STD cover genitals, I ended up breaking down uncontrollable crying and was escorted out.

I have knowledge on the topic of sex and stds already and didn't want to know more.

But was forced into a test that made my relationship with it worse, and no its not the fact that we were shown stds, it was the fact that someone was forceing me to look at genitals and do questions on them.

Long story short, I don't know if I'm alonein this in how badly it made me cry and freak out or this is just something that I have to work on.

Also sorry if things are hard to read I'm still getting help with my dyslexic.