When I talk to my peers about sex education, most of them either don’t know much about safety/disease/pregnancy/etc. , or they had to teach themselves all about it, just like I did.

Now, I’m sure we all remember those sex ed classes we had to take throughout our lives, in middle school, and then again in high school. I’m sure we all remember being able to opt out of them with parent’s permission too. Which probably shouldn’t be a thing, in my opinion, but hey, it is, not much to be said about that. What can be said about the sex education, though, is that it is honestly lacking here in the South, and in the U.S. in general.

Sex education should be teaching us about all the varieties of contraception, how to have sex safely, how to avoid pregnancy and the general gist of sexual activity, and what you should do when you become sexually active.

But is that what happens, in reality?

Not really.

The biggest thing I learned in my sex education was tied to Christian values, and that was “no sex until marriage” otherwise known as abstinence. In middle school, I even got a small little “atm” card that said “it can wait” and “everyone’s NOT doing it” and a little signature spot on the back about remaining abstinent until marriage, for everyone to take and sign, should they want to.

That’s all well and great, teaching ONE way to not get a disease or become pregnant, but what happens if I do start having sex before marriage? What then? I wouldn’t know if I didn’t do my own research, because I was never taught in my sexual education classes. I was only shown the downfalls that could happen from having premarital sex. So, that research was left up to myself. I’m not saying that if your values are to wait until marriage to have sex, you’re silly, or wrong, but I AM saying that the system of only teaching that is wrong. Students who are going through their early teens, and starting to go through puberty need to learn about what is going on with their bodies, and that it’s okay to have the feelings that they might be having.

They shouldn’t be shamed for it, or told that they have to wait until who knows how long to find a person to have sex, or do any other sexual activity with. That doesn’t make sense.

They should be educated on how to properly put on a condom, different forms of birth control, like the pill, IUDs, implants, and so on. People should be told that there is more than just “don’t have sex” as a way to avoid disease and pregnancy. Sadly, they typically aren’t. This is how a student makes it all the way to college without knowing anything about these concepts, and maybe ends up not sticking to their values, thus ending up pregnant or with a disease, or even both.

I don’t want students to grow up having to do their own research, the way I did. I want everything I learned myself to be properly taught in a classroom. These things shouldn’t be awkward to talk about. More peoIle need to be sex-positive and not shame those who have sex. Your values are your values, whether you want to have sex at 18, or wait until you marry. They are all okay. No more shaming anyone for anything that is a natural human instinct. It isn’t fair. Yes, that includes mastubation, becuase that is the person’s choice too. There isn’t any reason to cringe at someone for what they do.

For those of you who want to further look into sex ed, Planned Parenthood is a great resource for educating yourselves.