The Truth about Sex-ed in High-School
I believe living in this generation, when sex-ed is mentioned, at least half of us think back to that scene in the iconic movie Mean Girls.
As much as this scene made me laugh, it was alarmingly close to home. Especially since my gym teacher also taught my Health class!
At the beginning of this 7-week class, we were lucky enough to pick a topic we are passionate about to research and gather data for. My topic specifically is: How is Sex-ed taught in schools now, and where is it lacking? My data returned that the areas it is lacking is discourse about contraception, aftercare, and in general LGBT information.
The reason I chose this topic is because I remember not getting enough information myself about the topics I wished to learn about in Sex-ed. We didn’t even have a proper sex-ed class, it was strictly a two week unit in our health class that didn’t even scratch the appropriate surface of the topics at hand. The discussion about Sex-ed was wholly frowned upon outside of the classroom and sex in general was viewed as only deviants did it. I want sex to be viewed at face value: an act between two people that is completely natural, regardless if it is just for reproduction. Some discussion around the topic is that humans are the only species that have sex for fun, and there is a lot of research that searches to dispute that. This link actually goes to a really interesting article that introduces how scientists have started to go about answering that question. The topic of sex should not be covered in this taboo aura, and should not be so easily dismissed with a “don’t do it, it’s bad” sentiment to high-schoolers.
What struck me to tackle it in a high-school setting was when I came upon this article. Luckily, the bill that they discussed to make Sex-ed an Opt-in class instead of an Opt-out class died in committee. This got me thinking what I experienced in high-school, and how valuable a sex-ed class was to me. When I realized it really wasn’t anymore valuable than any other class, I dug deeper into what my idea of fundamentals about sex, and why this class in particular didn’t live up to it.
What teachers and parents don’t understand is that if they tackle sex-ed with a “I’ll give you the bare minimum, and just give you the information to scare you, so you don’t go off and try it” attitude, all they are doing is opening an avenue for their kids to go off and learn about all the things they didn’t mention from other sources, some that are not always so reputable. I had to learn how to get birth control by myself, and this delayed the process by about two years. Within those two years, I could have easily become pregnant with one mistake. The knowledge on how to protect yourself, and how to properly avoid the risks of sex without avoiding sex all together, is literally invaluable. A natural occurrence, such as sex, should not have to be avoided, and kids shouldn’t be shamed for wanting to learn about it.
But enough about what I think, I wanted to know how others felt about the current way sex-ed was being taught. I constructed a survey you can see here. I didn’t limit the survey responses to just Idaho, but most of the 100 survey responses I got were from the west coast. In the survey itself, I focused on contraception being taught in schools, and the response to that.
This chart shows that Abstinence is still being primarily taught by school districts. When I interviewed my old Health teacher who was responsible for the topic of Sex-Ed, he informed me that the board of Education requires that the course be an Abstinence based course. This means unless a student comes into class and specifically asks about contraception, he will not cover it in his curriculum.
Of course, when I was in his class, I do remember discussing contraception vaguely for about a twenty minute segment, but I don’t remember it being covered in the book he used, and the discussion was never brought up again. Information about how to procure contraception, or the fact that you actually don’t need a parent’s signature or approval to get it. It is even illegal because of a confidentiality agreement for clinic workers to even tell your parents you were there. This is not me saying that schools need to teach kids to start going behind their parents back, but instead teaching them that they possess a certain liberty when it comes to their own bodies. I would even encourage teens to talk to their parents about their experiences, and the fact that they want birth control, because it is natural.
This graph backs up the data from the CDC “ …that in 2006–2010, 43% of never-married teenaged females and 42% of never-married teenaged males had experienced sexual intercourse at least once.” From this Vital and Health Statistics. My data is about split even, but even more stating they had a sexual experience because I had asked in general, where the CDC had stated to intercourse only, attributing to the difference in numbers. Regardless of what information you want to take as more accurate, the numbers speak for themselves. If we are giving kids a limited amount of information pertaining to sex, and half of them are still experiencing it, we need to be more open to changing the way we educate them.
When I asked my survey takers what they thought their school was lacking in an open ended question, they answered LGBT sexual education, aftercare education, and contraception (more specifically how to get it.) Below is a word cloud I constructed from the answers that I will explain.
The biggest words are slightly misleading in this word cloud since I plugged raw data in and didn’t take out fillers. The reason abstinence is up there is because it appeared in their answers as: “ The inclusion of choice-based and consent education in informing young adults would have been appreciated more than the scare tactics of STI/STD’s and the preaching of abstinence.” for example. (This is actually a response I got on my question.) When reading the responses, they begged for inclusivity for LGBT kids and same-sex relationships. They also wished for contraception to be taught, resources to be handed out, and the act of aftercare to be known.
These former high-school students, most of which are in college now, have been through the education system recently. I believe they reflect what students wish to be taught. Sex is not a taboo subject, and quite frankly should not be treated as such. If high-school kids can handle being taught about wars and killing, they can handle being taught things they will encounter more often hopefully, such as orgasms, aftercare, contraception, homosexuality, trans-care, etc.
What I propose as a solution to this problem of schools teaching mainly abstinence, is to simply not just teach abstinence. It may seem like a no-brainer, and hardly a complex solution, but why make it harder than it has to be? I wouldn’t claim to know the politics of a school system, but what I do claim to know is that Sexual Education deserves to be it’s own class, not part of a Health class as a two week segment. Sex deserves to be discussed in a shame free environment that does not reflect parents wishes to hide the truth from their kids, but rather enriches their minds with facts about sex, and what it is actually like. It’s okay to have sex for pleasure, it’s okay to have sex with someone you like but not necessarily love yet. It’s okay to have these experiences and learn from them. It’s as okay to not be ready for sex as it is okay to be confident in the body you are in and not feel shame for having sex.
What I hope you take away from this data is that the youth wish to be informed fully, or at least adults looking back wish they had been better informed to make it through the experiences they had. If you are a parent, don’t be afraid to have an open discussion about sex with your teen. It will save them a lot of heartaches later.
If you wish to contact me about this blog post, or wish to use my research for anything, you can contact me at: taylorrenner@u.boisestate.edu currently.
I am a part of the ID:EA Certificate Program at Boise State University. To find out more information about the program, click here!
