A study cited in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning
indicates that high school students want sex education
earlier but that teachers are uncomfortable teaching such material. Regardless
of the fact that this study was of a small sample size of students in Ballarat
(a relatively urban centre in Victoria), it’s findings have hit a nerve & illuminated
a heated debate in the comments section.
The argument against early sex education draws on fears of
the loss of young people’s ‘innocence’ and the age-old moral panic that ‘if we
teach them about it, it’s giving them permission to go out and do it’. And you
know what? NO. It’s not. Teaching young people about their bodies, sex &
contraceptives will not make them go out and have sex, just as teaching them
about sports physiology and injury prevention will not make them go out and
play dangerous sports.
‘RRR’ suggests that young people “are not emotionally ready to learn about sex education at an earlier age”. But when is ‘ready’? Does ‘ready’ mean when they have already been forced to deal with it, when they’re thrust head-first into puberty without any preparation? When they have their first wet dream, when they bleed between their legs, when they find themselves feeling guilty about masturbating? Surely we are ready to learn about our bodies at the earliest age possible. Surely the fact that we inhabit these glorious, fascinating, mysterious, messy and confusing vessels called our bodies, gives us enough reason to know how they work, what they can do and how this may affect us in the future.
I have a 4-year-old nephew who is endlessly inquisitive about his body and the bodies of those around him. Instead of calling his penis a 'willy', 'peepee' or a number of ridiculous pseudonyms I've heard used by adults and children alike, he knows it's called a penis. He knows about his foreskin, how to clean himself and that his penis feels nice sometimes when he touches it. He is incredibly well adjusted, happy and healthy. He knows who is allowed to touch his body and in what ways, what is 'off limits' and is being taught to look after himself. When we asks, we answer. It the information given is not relevant to him (as I'm sure it won't be for many years), he quickly tunes out and resumes playing Mario. It doesn't damage him and it doesn't confuse him. What it does do is open up an honest line of communication between himself and responsible adults who he loves and trusts. Where's the negative there?
By withholding information from young people, we reduce their sense of ownership of their bodies, their agency and decision-making which comes with the responsibility of being a human. To me, this screams of a number of concerning issues including possible body image problems, uninformed sexual decision-making, and sexual assault concerns(where young people are sexually disenfranchised and do not feel they are entitled to speak up about their own bodies and what can/can’t be done with them).
Amongst all the debate and misinformed nonsense on this comment thread, there are those who share some wonderful insights, and I’ll leave the last word with them:
Hear hear! It's quite obvious that the parents getting up in arms about this are just projecting their own shame onto their children, and so the cycle continues. I wish people would give their kids more credit than they do and just be open and honest.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think there's something to this argument in the sense that it's naive to think that our children will stay innocent forever. The issue i think is do we only tell them when they ask? Do we let the schools teach them (think of how unenthusiastic and inarticulate the average PDHPE teacher is in describing genitalia, let alone chlamydia) or leave it to parents? Remember again that parents are people too with their own (often misguided) views on sexuality and what is and isn't appropriate. It's a complex issue and honestly while i do agree that teaching them early and in a responsible manner about sex is very important, it's also crucial to realise there's no magical bullet; no panacea that will magically wipe away the problems of children learning the wrong things about sex in the wrong way.
ReplyDeleteJust my 2 cents
thanks sanjay - I agree that there's no 'magical bullet', but it would be nice if the environment could change over the next few years. It's not so much about WHO teaches kids, but HOW and WHEN. Often people mix morality in with their sex education (especially parents who are of course affected by their own views) and this is when it leads to issues. I guess my bottom line in this blogpost was that if we at least build a foundation of talking to children about their bodies by using the RIGHT words for their genitalia and telling them about their FUNCTIONS, then we can't really go wrong. ofcourse we need to protect them from abuse as best as possible by giving them some indication that it's not always appropriate for others to touch them, but this is more of a safety issue than a moral one.
DeleteIt's clearly always going to be an ongoing debate, I just get frustrated by adults still teaching their son that he has a 'peepee' or 'noodle' and their daughter that she has a 'foofoo' or 'fanny'. they have names. and they need to be respected.