Know the Importance of Sex Education for All

Accurate, comprehensive sex education is critical for sexual health. And sex coaches are perfectly positioned to promote sex ed for all.

As sex coaches, we often find ourselves filling the role of sex educator by default. Chances are, your knowledge base makes you one of the best resources for your clients and your community when they have questions regarding sexuality. There’s also a good chance some of these questions have gotten you thinking about the state of sex education: in your local area and around the world.

In 2019, we celebrated World Sexual Health Day on September 4th. The year’s theme was “Sexuality Education for All: a bridge to sexual health.” Note two words in particular: for all. It’s important to make this distinction because the sad reality is that not everyone has equal access to good quality sex education. This lack of access leads to very real consequences — but that’s likely not news to you.

Why everyone needs sex education

To have a better understanding of sexuality is to have a better understanding of the mind, body, and spirit. Sexuality is at the heart of many of our actions, thoughts, emotions, traumas, triumphs, and more. It can be a tremendous source of power, and it can also be a source of enormous pain — proper comprehensive sexuality education can determine which way that goes.

To see the effects of poor sex education, you needn’t look any further than many of the societies we live in today. Though we’ve made incredible progress over the years, it’s clear we still have a long way to go. In many places — in the United States, for example — there is little regulation on sex education. In fact, some U.S. states don’t even require that sex education be factual or based in science. In many other places, sex education isn’t taught at all.

A common fear is, “Well, if we teach children about sex, it’ll expose them to the idea too soon and there will be negative consequences.” The opposite, however, tends to be true more often. As a society, we seem to realize this when it comes to topics other than sexuality. For instance, we don’t expect children to be safe around fire without us telling them anything about it!

Areas with low-quality sexuality education see higher rates of teen pregnancy, more cases of sexually transmitted infections, and more cases of sexual harassment and assault. Sexuality education is one of the best forms of protection we can offer. The earlier we know about consent, safe sex, healthy sexual exploration, and how to respect the body — ours and others — the less pressure we put on people to learn these lessons “the hard way.”

How sex coaches can help

Few people are better qualified than sex coaches to start the revolution we need in sexuality education. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Educate on education: Your clients come to you to learn more about their sexuality — what if you could equip them to talk to others, as well? If it’s appropriate, bring up the topic of sex education with your clients and see how comfortable they feel talking about it with the people in their lives. This can be especially powerful for your clients with children. Dr. Patti Britton advocates that parents should be a child’s primary resource for sexuality education: This very concept began as a national initiative from her early days as staff leadership at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, where she spearheaded some of PPFA’s educational campaigns to promote parents as the primary sexuality educators of their children (whether they knew it or not). Give your clients the confidence and understanding to help them have these important conversations.
• Make yourself available in your community: You can start in the obvious places — would any schools in your area be willing to host you as a guest speaker? Maybe you can you stop by your local Planned Parenthood or other family planning organization and ask them what educational resources they could use. You could also put together flyers and packets filled with sound principles and accurate sexuality related educational messages for people to take with them for self study.
• Share as much information as you can: Videos, webinars, podcasts, and recordings are also a great way to spread awareness of just how important sex education can be. Have a special episode dedicated to how we can all be better sex educators on your YouTube channel or podcast. The question-and-answer format is (and most likely always will be) incredibly fun, popular, and helpful for people. Try this in your own platform(s), or see if you can get featured on someone else’s platform.

We make a point to celebrate World Sexual Health Day every September, but it’s critical to embrace and promote accurate and comprehensive sexuality education every day of the year to increase sexual health around the world.

Commit to spreading sexuality education far and wide. Let’s ensure everyone has access to quality information and accurate, comprehensive, sexually affirming educational content to further their journey to sexual wellness.

Keep in Touch

Did you find this Sex Coach Tip helpful? Don’t miss out on the next one by signing up for our newsletter.