In the sixth grade, I got a slip of paper sent home with me, explaining that in the coming weeks, my class and I would meet as a group and learn about safe sex. If our parents were to decide that they didn’t want their child to learn about these things, they were supposed to sign the form and turn it back in. Of course, since it wasn’t a “turn this in so your child CAN attend”, a lot of kids just didn’t give back the form. But I digress.
This course was, at that time, called “Right Choices”. There are a lot of names for it, really, but that’s the gist. The whole point was learning about safe sex, but that wasn’t what it was. We were told that premarital sex was bad. We were told that not “saving yourself” for marriage could result in so many bad things, such as your future spouse not loving you because you weren’t a virgin. We were told that if we had premarital sex, we would almost definitely contract a multitude of nasty STDs. Then, we were shown what would become of us with those STDs.
My instructor was a nice guy named Jonathan who could make himself sound like Donkey from "Shrek," so my classmates and I always got a few laughs. But looking back now, that was a wildly inappropriate thing to show a bunch of eleven-year-olds. We were shown the worst parts of sex, and then coerced into signing a little card that promised we wouldn’t have sex until marriage. Seeing as at least three people I know who took the same course as I did got pregnant our freshman year of high school, I think they might have broken their oh, so sacred promise, but that’s the point. Sex education in schools is not education, it’s playing on the fear of children.
Sex ed should not be playing sex as some shameful act that suddenly becomes okay when you’re married. Sex ed should be teaching kids how to have actual safe sex. It should explain all the different types of birth control, such as how a condom works, and how you use one, and that if a guy says he’s “too big” for a condom, you shouldn’t be having sex with him. Or, the types of birth control available to women, such as the pill or implants. It should explain how to go about getting these things, and getting tested for STDs.
Now, however, it’s not even called sex ed, but “abstinence class.” Which is ridiculous. In this day and age, sex is treated a lot more casually than it was in the past. Some people feel it shouldn’t be this way, but there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it. Sex is not the be-all-end-all or relationships. It doesn’t have nearly as much weight anymore. More than likely, the kids taking these “abstinence classes” are going to have sex way before marriage. So why not help them do it a bit more safely?
Sex education should be actual education. Not scaring young, impressionable people into following the same ideals that legislators think they should. Forcing preteens to sign abstinence pledges is not the right way to teach them about sex. If and when they decide they are ready, they need to know the realities of it. Teach the truth, not some messed up expectations that will only end with damaged sexually active young adults.
