Sex Education at school: a TED Talk by the Body Freedom Fighters
Written by Antonia Olbrich
One of the biggest mistakes of mankind is probably to think “this will only happen to others”. I am sure that each of us has thought of this saying at least once in life. For example, when your friend tells you about her last gynaecologist appointment and about how HPV viruses were found after her last PAP-test. And she actually did not know exactly what that meant, where HPV viruses come from and what they can lead to. You listen to her worries and hope that you will not be asked for your opinion. The subject is quicky forgotten in your head. Because actually you know about it as little as she does. This attitude is not only negligent but also dangerous for yourself and others.
There are also other topics, which are ignored and whose possible consequences are played down. For example, lots of women do not know that the female organism never forgets that one was once a smoker. The female body does not care if a woman does not smoke for a hundred years: the chemicals stay in the ovaries and it does not get any better.
I could go on telling you about such stories for the whole talk. Because the truth is that too many people know too little about their bodies. Take for example older women who do not now hot to correct their incontinence through pelvic muscles exercises. Women who do not know why and when they can get pregnant or not. Girls who go the gynaecologist asking for the “same pill of her best friend”, unaware of the fact that each body has its own needs when it comes to hormones. Or women who do not want to take hormones, but know too little about other options for contraceptives.
But tell me: how can it be that in 2020, in our “enlightened” society, we still face such issues, taboos and uncertainties?
I have an idea: I claim this is because of the wrong approach to sex education at schools. Do you remember about your sex education classes? Well, I can tell you about my experience. I was in 7th grade, it was a Thursday in July, end of the school year. It was incredibly warm outside and nobody could think about school anymore. We had this biology teacher — middle 50, man, looking at us in a pretty cold way. Our sex education started 30 minutes before the last bell rang. Because during the whole year — of course — it was only enough time for microbiology, photosynthesis, chemistry and how the ruminant digestive system of cows works.
But don’t get me wrong: these are all important topics. Plus, honestly, my biology teacher was really the last person on earth I would have asked about more details concerning my menstrual cycle. Here is everything I can remember about his lesson: some key words, that by the way of course everyone knew before: penis, vagina, reproduction, hygiene. That was it. So when I was 12 I could perfectly describe how green plants would transform light energy into chemical energy. But if you had asked me about my ovulation, I could not have given you a proper answer. Crazy, right?
And this must not only have regarded me and my girlfriends. The boys of my class used to laugh and make fun of the pictures of the genitals on our book only to cover their insecurities and uncertainties about sexual intercourse.
Moreover, there were plenty of other sexual spheres we never talked about at school: my teacher did not mention either queer sexuality, or asexuality or any other forms than heteronormative sexuality at all.
So much about my school in Germany. And then I started my Erasmus in Greece and had the chance to talk about sexual education also with my Italian, Belgian and French fellows. We found out we all had different education backgrounds concerning sex education.
Did you in fact know that the European Union does not have policy-making competencies in sexuality education, as it is the responsibility of the Member States? And this is not everything: in most countries the teachers themselves can decide in which way and how much they want to talk about it.
So this is the reason why probably a child from Sweden and one from Italy will both know about the Pythagorean theorem but their scholar knowledge about sexuality will differ enormously.
So we know the issue: school, as an institution, fails educating children about sexual life, sexual diseases, sexual consent, women’s health in general, pregnancy and I could go on like this for ages. The lack of open-minded discussion and reliable information generates uncertainties about sex. And this causes not only disinformation. It leads to most dangerous scenarios: unexpected pregnancies, severe diseases.. issues that affect your whole lives and those of others.
So how do we manage that a girl confidently talks to her gynaecologist about her body? Or that women practise pelvic muscles exercises against incontinence without being embarrassed?
The solution is simple. We need to change the system. We need to talk about sexuality at school not once, not twice, not 4 times but on a regular schedule. Re-invent the way to communicate young people about sex, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancies.
We do not live in the 60ies anymore. Today each child knows where babies come from. Times changed. In the age of digitalization, young boys and girls have access to internet sources. 51% of 11 to 13-year-olds reported that they had seen pornography at some point. I think we all agree that pornography is not the right source to get informed about sexuality and how human bodies work. This should be the task of schools. It is their task to teach how to distinguish between right and false, reliable and unreliable in this sea of information.
How should we do that? We need special sex education for each grade in accordance with the age and the maturity of the students. We need to brainstorm about new lessons concepts: theme days, peer education, experts interviews, anonymous questions rounds, discussions. We need lessons about sexual consent, sexual identities, sexual acceptance, abortion rights, women’s health, STDs like HIV, chlamydia, hepatitis. Let’s raise awareness for these topics that affect almost every one of us.
The children who learn about it today are the politicians that tomorrow will decide about reproduction rights, abortion rights, gender equality and psychological health issues.
We can do better.
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