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Sex Education, it doesn't work!

Sex Education, it doesn't work!

So while I was having a shower I had a thought (it is where all the good thoughts come from) and now they're doing a feature about it on my news so I guess it's a sign that I have to write this take.

All over the internet I see people complaining that kids these days don't have the proper sex education and are therefore having sex younger and getting pregnant. I'm telling you this is not the case...

From my own experience it didn't change a thing for me. I learnt about sexual education from the age of 9 through to the age of 14, we watched videos, learnt about all the different kinds of stds/STIs and saw pictures, we learnt about all the different kinds of contraception, how the reproductive system works etc etc...

I had had my first sexual experience when I was 13. My boyfriend at the time and I decided we wanted to try a bit of "fondling" after 3-4 months of just that we decided we wanted to have sex (I was 14 at this stage) we had a condom, safety first, and I laughed out of nerves and he went flaccid, I decided I wasn't ready and we broke up a few months later. But around the same time 2 of my friends were having sex. Along with plenty others of my class mates (one even going back door at 13).

Fast ts forward a couple years and I lose my virginity at 16 to my boyfriend who I was with at that time 6 months. We did not use a Condom, I have never used a condom to this day, we went unprotected because of the inconvenience. I eventually got onto birth control (Jadelle| implant in my arm)

We have since broken up and I've noticed that a couple people that were in my class at my primary school (sisters) both have baby's now.

My my cousins at the age of 8 have already started sex education. Their teacher asked them to go home and ask their parents what the "white sticky stuff that comes out of a penis called".

My sister is 10 in a month, has already developed breasts (refuses to wear a bra) and my mum is putting off giving her the talk. Her school hasn't had sex education yet.

I believe it is important, but I believe you can't blame education for the amount of teen mums and sexually active teenagers.

But we certainly shouldn't scare them into thinking that sex is scary and you shouldn't do It.

Sex Education, it doesn't work!

What are your ideas for a better sexual education system?

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Most Helpful Girl

  • There are always going to be exceptions, such as you and your boyfriend, but according to the actual statistics, jurisdictions with comprehensive sex ed programs have lower rates of teen pregnancy and STI's. That is a FACT.

    I will say that having had a proper sex education did work for me. I didn't have sex at all while I was still in high school and when I did start having sex, I was always very safe and responsible about it. Knowledge about all the different STI's and how to properly use a condom, as well as different types of contraception is what has gotten me to the age of 29 without contracting any STI's or getting pregnant - and it's not because I've practiced abstinence!! I have had sexual intercourse with over 20 people and I have never once contracted anything, because I know how to properly use a condom and I am adamant about using them EVERY TIME.

    Had I not had that education, I can guarantee I would have started having sex way younger and been way less careful.

Most Helpful Guy

  • It's because A LOT of sex education in the US is abstinence based and not actually about having safe sex. People are going to have sex and withholding information about how to be safe and responsible is a disservice to everyone. I had extensive sex education in elementary school in 5th grade then again sophomore year in high school. I think we had a #2 in middle school but I don't remember how in depth it was.

    cdn.citylab.com/.../...rate-2010-cdc-state-map.png

    Teen pregnancy rates are pretty low in states that are known for having good sex education and pretty high in the Bible Belt states where abstinence only education is most widespread. That isn't a coincidence.

    I went to public schools in Massachusetts and I don't remember anyone getting pregnant in high school. Hell my town hall gives out FREE condoms and it was right next door to the old high school. Quite a few people would take advantage of that too.

    • Yeah it is not like that in my country

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  • Agree I don't think it works..
    Especially now since most people are already having sex before they even take things like sex education.(12,13,14yr olds) And learn about it at an even earlier age.

    I never took sex education..
    Instead I took abstinence class from 6th grade until like my second year of high school.

    Surprisingly still a virgin at 21 and planning to keep it that way.

    I don't know if the class had any effect on me because back then I thought it was a joke but now I'm one of the few of my friends that didn't end up pregnant during highschool or immediately after.

    The idea of being able to live life risk free of pregnancy and little chance of catching STD appealed to me more than 1 night of pleasure with a guy I probably won't speak to again after highschool.

    I think early education earlier than high school will make the biggest difference but most parents want to shield their kids from the real world pretending as if they don't know or they're probably not active yet.

    Most people don't take sex education till high school. The only reason I had a class so early was because the elementary school I went to sent a letter home to parents who then had the option to choose if it was something they wanted their kids to participate in.
    My parents said yes, but many said No.

    So there was a point during the day where one group of kids would go to one class and the others would sit put with the teacher.

    My parents also never had a sex talk with me with all the abstinence class they made me take I'm sure they assumed it was taken care of. ^_^
    They also didn't allow me to date in high school.
    So lots of factors that could've effected why I'm still a virgin.

  • I think there should be some education on what happens when you become a parent, and how that changes your life. Let people ask themselves if they want to go through those changes at a young age. A new college graduate at 22 having a baby has much better chances than someone only 4 years her junior - the high school graduate having a baby. The latter will be extremely unlikely to ever to get her education, and will spend most of her life below the poverty line. The former has a pretty good shot.

    • The "becoming a parent" lesson I had was taking an electronic baby home for three days and keeping a log of when it cried and what it wanted. However, the teacher programmed everyone's "baby" to have colic to scare us into not having sex. (It wasn't even a health/sex ed class; it was family consumer sciences.)

  • Where I'm from we had sex education, and then follow up programs we could take in high school that were called Family Life ed or something like this (I can't remember). There sex was discussed but it went further and taught us more about the reality of family planning, and how to handle sex-related issues. It was optional.

    I remember a few kids in school were left out of sex-ed because their mommies and daddies wrote notes to excuse them from participating. (These were religious kids.) What better way to keep your kid in the dark than to deny them everything. You'd think religious parents would be relieved to have some teacher do the Talk for them! Religious families tend not to want to talk, so they don't, and then mistakes are made. Bad ones.

    I think a big part of why sex-ed can be successful is the teacher teaching it. The example you gave where a teacher told a kid to go home and ask about semen is awful. What good is having the sex-ed if the teacher makes the kid go ask the parents in the end anyway? How stupid.

    The teachers need to be ready for anything. Any heckling from kids, any jokes thrown out to them, and take it like a pro. Kids are bastards when a topic like sex comes up and they get all juvenile about the subject and can't pay attention. If the teacher just makes the class fun and informative while taking control of everything that could happen, then it would be much better received by kids. I had a several teachers teach it each year, and I remember some were stuffy and awful about it, and some were hilarious and more fun to learn from, and it's those teachers that I actually took more away from than the others.

    Same can be said for parents and older siblings teaching kids about sex. Look at the movie Parenthood. Helen (Dianne Wiest) couldn't even begin to know where to talk to her son Garry (Joaquin Phoenix) about sex, and was so stuffy about it anyway! She gets her quirky son-in-law Tod (Keanu Reeves) to do it and Garry ends up feeling way better and learned a lot more from someone who didn't make such an issue of it. To think that kids can retain more when they're not being scolded or made to feel shame about something - with anything! Kids are smarter than that, and it starts with the person who is in the position to teach.

    • There was not enough info about the go home and ask about semen thing to judge it, but my thought was that it was likely an attempt by the teacher to get the kids to expand the conversation about sex to include the parents. And in many, hopefully most, cases, that would be a good thing to do.

    • I would be mortified with the school if the language from a child was "white sticky stuff that comes out of the penis". I'm no prude, as most can tell here, but as a parent I would be totally unprepared! I think some parents find relief that sex-ed takes some weight off their shoulders, what I mentioned already. If they do something like this, I just hope they warn parents ahead of time that "we" as in the school, may send your child home to research further.

  • Statistically speaking, sex education has been proven to work. It's been shown that comprehensive sex ed does indeed lower teen pregnancy rates and prevent STIs. As such, we absolutely should focus on getting better sex ed in schools, and especially on abolishing abstinence only education, as that absolutely does not work.

  • Ok, here is my view: Sexual Education will HELP against preventing STD's (since that scares people) but I doubt it would have little or nothing to do against teen pregnancy. Why? Because birth control is expensive. We all know condoms often break and fail (my sister found out the hard way) AND there are still too many guys who won't have sex with a condom because it doesn't feel as "good."

    Right now, we supposedly have the lowest teen pregnancy rate of all time AND the lowest rate of teenagers having sex in history, yet, our sexual education hasn't changed. There is literally no correlation here.

    I have a better idea: A sexual education system which persuades people to remain abstinent, BUT, also teaches them the risks of STD's AND one which provides affordable birth control. I don't agree with abstinence only but I also don't agree with the opposite notion with "Have all the sex you want, just use a condom." I like a HAPPY MEDIUM here.

    But in reality, there is a correlation between abstinence and teen pregnancy rates here in the United States, Canada, Asian countries and African countries. Interestingly enough, this correlation doesn't exist in European countries. I'm going off what I learned in an Adolescent Development class, just in case people were wondering where I came up with my claims.

  • sex education doesn't work because its extremely heavily influenced by religious organizations and pro-life sadists, in my opinion it should just be thrown out the window along will all the other bs they teach in school..

    sex awareness works better because it actually teaches them about all that but doesn't restrict them by lying to them or scaring them into going gay/nun or something (no offense to gay people, some offense to nuns, and yes its personal)

    (spoiler alert : rant ahead)

    they should also completely reject all notion of influence by pro-life and religion, what good has pro-life done? overpopulate the world? hmm? and religion - what have they done? caused thousands of years of stupid wars and bloodshed in the name of their damn god (s), is the holy crusades really justified? the vatican has yet to answer for their countless crimes.. they should not have any more power over the people, especially the children/teens who will be the future of humanity.

  • that's just the very basic.

    In norway we have an... extensive... sex ed. Both guys and girls learn about what happen for both, we learn how/when the bodies change and generally what changes and which order they come in... basically we learn to understand the puberty, from both a girl's and a guy's perspective.
    Also we have the "birds and the bees" sex ed where we learn how to make babies, and what happens. And it's not that bullshit "when a mommy and daddy loves eachother very much", it's simply "this happens". No bullshit.

    As we get older, STD's and pregnancy risks also becomes a topic. A sort of way to learn the risks of it, without using the scaring and shaming.

    The goal is never to teach abstinence, but to give us knowledge to make sure that when we decide to have sex, we do it knowing all the consequenses.

    And trust me, that works!

  • Like many people have already said, choosing not to use what you learned in sex education does not mean spreading the (correct) information isn't important and doesn't work for people who choose to follow it. Statistically speaking, it has shown reductions in teen pregnancy rates and STI spread. I will say though that the use of scare tactics by focusing to much on the negative outcomes and teaching abstinence only needs to be removed from the curriculum because it doesn't help (and may even hurt) some people. I am saying even as a Christian who is a virgin by choice. Some young people are going to have sex no matter what. Some people are going to have unsafe sex no matter what, but at least it won't be because they didn't know better if they are properly educated. On top of that, I think understanding consentual sex is important, too. Instead of just telling people only what they can do to reduce their chances of getting raped, people should have a better idea of what contexts qualify as rape. You'd be surprised to see how many people dismiss certain cases of it just because the context doesn't seem as clear.

    • It doesn't reduce teen pregnancy rates, at least here in the United States. We have the lowest teen pregnancy rate of all in out country's history, yet, we still teach abstinence only education. How do you explain that? It's because sex education has NO Affect on the pregnancy rate whatsoever.

    • Yeah, and we should continue teaching sex ed to keep it at those low levels. It must have had an effect to get to this level. You're ignoring the historical change pre and post education. If it's so low already, I'm guessing we are reaching that threshold where it can't be reduced much further. You're also not comparing to countries with varying quality of sex ed or no sex ed. Are you really going to dispute a bio major on how science works?

    • The U. S. Still had the highest teen pregnancy rate though there is about 43 births per 1,000 teenagers aged 15-19 My country is the second highest with about 28 per 1,000 and for a country of only 4 million that's a lot. This is followed by the UK with 26 per 1,000 The lowest teen pregnancy rate is in Switzerland with under 5 per 1,000.

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  • Funny thing, when we had sex ed, most were already fucking each other, lol.

    And the sex ed class consisted of the teacher telling us how to properly fuck and how to use protection correctly. It was hilarious.

    They gave us free samples and everything. Obviously all the free condoms were used as you'd expect: filled with water and thrown at the sluttily dressed chicks.

    • Yeah all the condoms we got were just blown up and used to hit people with. One guy in our class (second year high school) was talking about how he's used plastic wrap because he didn't have a condom, nobody knew if he was kidding or what but the teacher (old Pervy guy that was telling us all about his sex life) just laughed it off

  • Well sex education is not put in place to prevent sex it's there to inform you of how "everything works". And just because you and a few friends or people you know had sex super young or didn't use a condom. Doesn't mean that the system in place isn't doing its job. In the end it's up to the individual when they're ready for sex and how they want to do it. When I was in middle school sex was unheard of. As our class reached sophomore year it become a bit more common. As a previous user mentioned the topic of sex in the U. S is treated different. A lot of people here are nervous or afraid to talk to their children about sex so I feel like that's a big part of why we have sex Ed in school becuase parents don't like talking to their kids about it. That's not the only reason though. Some people treat sex different and I beleive as a whole we should be talking about it more openly instead of being a anonymous face on a website. Now to your last point, in the U. S I feel like it's becoming more socially acceptable to have baby's at a young age and now a lot of people would disagree with that. But it's becoming more and more common so in time society just sees it as another event. When girls are young there raised with baby dolls and barbies. This girls are already being trained without realizing it to want kids, own a house, and have a husband. It's being taught to them since they are born. Thanks for reading! Comment below if you would like to add something or have your own opinion. :)

  • I have to disagree, I think it depends where you are learning it (as in what state you are in). No kid in our school has been pregnant and we only got to learn sex ed starting 11 years old. Although we did learn about abstinence, it wasn't the prominent thing that we learned. Instead they taught us more about the idea of protecting ourselves, and ensuring that we knew that it isn't a 100% effective. I think what really works on many kids/teens is showing them the pregnancy itself as in the mother screaming in the hospital room giving birth. This shows them the consequences so they know what they are dealing with. Many kids are actually uneducated on the subject since most parents dont tend to share this stuff. So sex-ed is good

    • I don't think the video helps at all. It just shows us what's gonna happen later if you plan on having kids, young teen parents or not. Showing us young just gets the general image in our heads.

    • @nikiroxs I think sexual education CAN be good, but the "abstinence only" or "have sex, just use a condom" notions are stupid.

  • Actually it does work according to statistics. The kind of sex ed that doesn't work is the one that primarily focuses on abstinence, which also uses shaming and scaring tactics... the kind you see in the gif you actually used (yes I know it's from Mean girls and that it's a bit extreme, but still).

    Where I live, we started sex ed at a young age. I think we were maybe 11 or something. For our first class, we got to write down a few questions on a piece of paper that our teacher would answer out loud. That anonymity allowed us to be a bit more brave, since it still is kind of an awkward or sensitive topic at that age. A few classes in, people started asking these questions more freely. And a year or so later, when we were maybe 13 or something, we also started learning more about birth control and STI/STDs.

    I was never a party girl so I didn't really get the "inside scoop" a lot. But I do know that one of my friends were one of the first to lose her virginity at age 15/16, drunk at a party. This actually made our other mutual friend very upset, and from what I know it was a one time thing. People at school didn't really have much sex. Maybe they experimented or something with some light stuff, like I said I don't really know the "inside scoop", but it seems to me that nobody really had full blown sex until a couple of years later (17/18), when people started getting into serious relationships. Nobody I know has gotten pregnant. This one guy that used to go to my school accidentally got his girlfriend pregnant but they're already 20. So it's not like he got her pregnant in high school.

    So from what I know, the kind of sex ed we got really worked. At least among the people I hung out with, and the people in my classes. Like I said, some things might have happened behind closed doors that I'm not aware of, but at least nobody got pregnant. And I'm also pretty sure that if someone had gotten an STD, it would have spread like wildfire (not the STD, just the info about it lol).

  • The problem is you're dealing with teenagers. Teenagers will not, for the most part, heed warnings. They are hormonal and impulsive and headstrong, as well as being sheep who follow their peers. Abstinence is not the answer, kids will always want to experiment and have sex - hammering home the consequences is what needs to be done. By parents. School should teach biology, but the social repercussions should be taught by families. The realities of getting HIV or having a baby are what REALLY need to be taught and understood. Society needs to stop pretending we can stop teenagers having sex, it's not going to happen. We have to face up to the fact that their bodies WANT them to have sex, their bodies want to make babies. Acknowledging this and working with younger people is what we need.

    Or a hose pipe to hose the horny little fuckers down with, ha!

  • Teenagers WILL take risks, so yes, trying to scare them with pictures of STDs and making them carry around fake babies will not do anything... Trying to teach them abstinence won't do a damn thing. I think sex education should be entirely based around having safe sex instead of trying to prevent them from having sex.

    • Teaching them abstinence only will obviously help reduce the teen pregnancy rate (which is at an all time low) but won't do anything about STD's.

    • If you abstain from sex, it would lower pregnancy and STD rates. For STD's it's basically about using condoms and/or getting tested before having a new partner, and of course not having multiple partners. @CincinnatiRedsfan

    • Exactly. I don't agree with an abstinence-only sexual education but I also don't think ANY sexual education will have an affect on teenagers. Really, this topic is stupid to bring up anyway. It's not even important lol.

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  • I don't think sex education overall is the problem, though I do think it is something that is necessary and it should be something considered more important than it is now. I say all that but obviously it falls flat because kids don't understand the consequences, it isn't real to them, we all remember that age when we think we are invincible and then reality slaps us in the face.

    You can tell somebody something as much as you want but it won't be real to them unless they see examples in real life. That is to say examples at home, and around them from more than a few people. These teens need to understand the choices they make will effect their lives and how it will effect their lives.

    To be honest the largest problem is that parents avoid this subject or they use religion to force the issue neither of which works, in my school we didn't even have a sex ed class because there is a large religious influence here in the community and likely those of the school board were included in this. Society itself is the problem right now, parents either avoid sex education, or they are largely absent or negligent in their duties that help form a young person into the person they are, this include sex ed among other things.

    One more quick thing to add, you said you learned about sex ed from 9-14 age range, personally children and teens that young don't really understand enough or even have the interest in that kinda stuff from what I remember of being that age, at least not normally. I would say 12-16 would be a more appropriate age, that the time frame their bodies are changing and it makes it a bit more relevant to them, aside from that I think they need real life examples and speaker/lecturers who can share their experiences it would help if they were only a little bit older than them as well. it wouldn't hurt at least, since they would be able to relate to them better.

  • I think they need to stop with just spreading abstinence and more on telling us about safe sex. Lets face it, teens are gonna have sex. We already know about male and female reproductive systems and shit, might as well just focus on safe sex the older we get. Like as kids, talk about periods and wet dreams, shit that happens, and how to properly control it so we don't have an incident where a girl who has her first period didn't know what to properly do and ends up bleeding in class for everyone to see (something that I've seen). Tell the kids that guys get boners and stop acting like it's funny and something weird, cause it's not. It's normal.

    As we get older, go through the whole pregnancy and STI's bit, but focus on safe sex as well. For sophomores/juniors, just focus on safe sex. At that point, they know damn well what an STI is an how pregnancy works, now lets avoid it by telling them what to do. They're gonna be having sex, might as well prep them on how to avoid being a parent and still being in high school.

  • I learned about sex when I was younger, as I was floating around in the foster system and at one point when I lived on the street. Then I was adopted, and though my dad has no problem talking to me about sex, I have found the teachers at the school to be closed off and nervous.

    They don't explain anything specifically, it's more of a "go ask your parents" situation, and that is a bad situation to be in if your parents are abusive, neglectful, or even very religious or very ignorant. Then, chances are the education will be incomplete. Teachers are scared of teaching sex education because parents will attack them if they say the wrong thing or even make a joke, so yeah.

    Besides, teachers are also biased by their own morals about what we should learn or not. They told my class "You should all have birth control ready, because eventually you will all fall in love with the opposite gender, and all of you will want to have sex." As a homoromantic asexual (meaning I like guys romantically, but I have absolutely no interest in having sex), that statement was completely wrong and I honestly couldn't stop laughing. Which of course got me in trouble.

    Last year they told us we should all practice abstinence until marriage. The point is, teachers (at least in my experience) are not willing to teach this things.

  • Kids and adults both turn to sexual misadventures for various reasons. Education has nothing to do with it.

    Some are merely led astray by bad influences. Corrupters are everywhere.

    Others turn to it in desperation because they have an unfulfilled spiritual need - or several.

    They maybe don't want to acknowledge that this is the problem, or maybe they're too ashamed to seek guidance from those who should be providing it. Or else they have learned from experience that these parents/mentors are unreliable for that kind of support.

    Regardless, the end result is the same: a spiritual hole in someone's life, and a desperation that leads to the belief that sex can fill the gap.

    Sex "education" focuses purely on the physical. Yet, far too many have complained of doing everything that is said should be done to max the physical fulfillment, yet walking away unfulfilled. Sex is also a spiritual process, and that cannot be measured in brain chemicals. When there is dissonance between the spiritual outcome and the physical, no amount of chemical euphoria can make it feel right.

    Because of this, "protection" and what-not fails to address the spiritual intimacy needs of the individual. Hence, the urge to explore the "forbidden fruit" zones only intensifies the more arbitrary "protections" you put in place.

    Combine that with defensive violators, corrupters, virgin shamers, and various idolatrous flavors of hedonism, you have a recipe for whetting appetites for sex anywhere, with anyone, any which way, that can drive someone insane.

    It is poison on two planes of existence. Throwing toon porn at the "problem," which is how we define "education" in most American schools, does nothing but make things worse.

  • I actually went over this in one of my videos:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldW4n3tpz3g



    It's because even though our society is slowly but surely steering clear of religious laws and regulations, sex is still viewed as such a terrible taboo. You are more likely to see someone's eyes get gouged out of their head in a movie or video game than you are to see a simple vagina. People view sex as the most ADULT and inappropriate thing that you can possibly show to someone who is under 18. This is also why people are always so nervous and ashamed of their bodies during sex and totally unaware of what to do or how to pleasure each other.

  • There are a lot of kids that don't get sex education but I think the issue is that being informed and being responsible are two different things. The goal is to educate not get them to abstain but I think some people would hope that they can convince kids to just not do it ow that is something that does not work. I think it should be mandatory in all schools because there are a lot of places that sex ed is not being taught at all.

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