From Screen to School: The Diversity and Discrepancy in Sex Education
When Netflix released the hit show Sex Education, it ignited more than just a conversation about Otis Milburn trying to play sex therapist with his friends. It evidenced the vast discrepancies in sex education amongst today’s youth through conversations of consent, sexuality, intimacy, and more, while simultaneously creating a conversation around the different forms of sexuality education students receive. While sex education comes in a variety of forms, ranging from a discussion between parents and kids about where babies come from to a teacher lecturing in front of a classroom about the dangers of STI’s and pregnancy, the traditional approach centers about the traditional heteronormative male and female anatomy, alongside a hefty prevention-centered discussion regarding STIs and pregnancy.
Across the United States there are three main forms of sexual or sexuality education in traditional learning environments: Abstinence-Only Programs, Comprehensive Sex Education, and Health and Safety Education. Abstinence-Only Programs are exactly what they sound like, programs that promote abstinence until marriage, or at least adult age, with no education around birth control, contraception, disease-prevention, or pleasure. Abstinence-Only education emphasizes the physical and psychological risks of having sex as essentially a scare tactic to avoid sexual experiences all together. However, Abstinence-Only education can be incredibly dangerous and risky for those who receive it later in life because of the lack of education around contraception and birth control, that could result in STI transmission or unplanned pregnancies.
Health and Safety education, on the other hand, is one step up. This form of education does discuss consent, contraception, and birth control, alongside the mechanics of traditional, heteronormative sex. However, while this education is an improvement from the abstinence-only model, it fails to discuss the emotional implications of having sex, alongside a nonexistent discussion of inclusivity and diversity in sex. Ultimately, this leads us to the third and my personally preferred form of sex education, Comprehensive Sex Education. Comprehensive sex-ed works to address both the physical and emotional aspects of sex alongside topics that are often excluded from sex-ed discussions. including pleasure, pornography, sexual orientation, etc. For example, comprehensive sex education would include discussions of how women need clitoral stimulation to have an orgasm or the importance of foreplay, whereas health and safety education would simply discuss the anatomy and physiology of sex.
However, although comprehensive sexual education programs are often all-encompassing, it is also critical to remember that not everyone gets their sexual education from school, and it is more likely than not that students get their education from elsewhere. According to a study done by the National Institute of Health, almost 30% of kids get their sexual health education from pornography, while another almost 33% get their education from the internet and social media. While the utilization or pornography and social media is perfectly normal, it is also an incredibly unrealistic depiction of sex due to the dramatization for entertainment purposes. Similarly, the lack of realistic depictions of sex can create unrealistic expectations of one’s sexual partner that can lead to unpleasant and potentially unwanted sexual experiences, including abuse and harassment. However, according to that same study, 0% of students who received their sexual education through a traditional schooling, had significantly lower, if any, experiences of sexual harassment, abuse, and unwanted pregnancies.
Ultimately, while there is no necessarily correct method to learn about sex education, and every method has their pros and cons, it is important to bring about this discussion and be aware of the potential gaps in your own knowledge, just as Otis did in his sexual education journey. Sources
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/sex-education
