Sex Ed is a ‘Dirty’ Word
Too many young people receive confusing information about sex and do not have a place where to learn safely about it. I remember when I was 15, I was thinking that you can get pregnant only when there is a ‘real love’ relationship between two partners — no sense. Also, I was ashamed to ask my parents, so I was getting information from all sorts of suspicious sources.
Think about that. Where does a 15-year-old Bulgarian teenager learn about safe sex, SDUs, or anatomy? Maybe on the internet, in the park, talking to their friends, or sometimes to their parents. But how reliable are all these sources, and what do they lead to?
Think about learning geometry or algebra, where do our parents send us to learn that?
Correct, at school. There, we get educated by experts, which eliminates the possibility of believing in inaccuracies like 2+2=5.
Learning from experts helps us make educated choices on those subjects in the future. The same goes for sex ed. If they are thought, girls wouldn’t panic at the first sight of blood on their underwear because they will know what to do and that it has nothing to do with their virginity. Wouldn’t it be good to have this subject thought at school too?
Well, sexuality education is not part of the mandatory law school curriculum in Bulgaria, so teenagers do not have the opportunity to learn about it there.
Since 2016, every school in Bulgaria has had to decide whether or not to teach sex ed. This optional module was approved to try to raise awareness on issues such as adolescent pregnancy, as Bulgaria was ranked the country with the highest percentage of cases in the EU back then and among the top four in the world.
The result? Only some schools have adopted Sex ed in their curricula, and statistics are not improving.
But why is that? The school principals must decide whether the program should be implemented for their school. They often find themselves in a situation where whatever decision they make is always wrong. If they do not allow sexual education in school curricula, society can criticize them as “narrow-minded” or “intolerant,” and if they say “yes”-there will always be a parent who will condemn them for” creating a sex revolution “or something.
I understand the parents or elderly people who find learning about sexuality at a young age totally against their status quo and morale.
Some of them worry that if their children learn about their sexuality at a young age they will begin ‘experimenting’ too. Or maybe their religion does not allow sex before marriage and they may feel that getting educated on the subject may instigate their children to inappropriate behavior.
Every individual has a different view of the matter, however, results from a 2017 UNICEF report show that 40 percent of teenagers aged 15 have already had intercourse. Also, another study found that only 42% of teenagers know how to use condoms correctly. This shows an absence of education on the topic, which leads to uneducated and harmful choices.
Luckily, there are inspiring Bulgarians who did not want to comply with the current norms and who took the matter into their own hands.
Two of them are Svetlana Baeva and Raya Raeva: Bulgarian creators and activists who have created (with the help of experts) a children’s book on Sex Ed: ‘V for Vagina.’ The book discusses various key issues for a young woman, such as menstrual problems, sex, and female anatomy.
The guide will be distributed free of charge, both online and offline, across the country.
Another is Nikoleta Popkostadiva, who in 2015 founded ‘Loveguide. bg’-a project/movement to talk openly about sexuality and educate adolescents to know their bodies, to stand up for their boundaries, to be tolerant, and to be responsible in their relationships with others.
Sex education should be considered a teenage right. It should be compulsory, comprehensive, and medically correct. We are responsible for the future of our society, and that is the main reason why we need to educate the next generation for a better and safer life.
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Estela Valeova is a Journalism and Mass Communication Senior student at the American University in Bulgaria. She feels like people need to smile more. Her mission is to help them do so.
