Sexual Education (NSFW)

[SacredWarrior]

Was sex ed taught to you in school? If so, what kind and did it have an impact? Do you think sex ed helps or is a hindrance?

I was taught sex ed in middle school and I was mostly taught about STDs, pregnancy, contraceptives, and consent. Abstinence was brought up but not forced upon either. It definitely had an impact on me and I'm grateful for that!

I think sex ed is very helpful and should definitely be in schools and readily available. Sexual repression definitely isn't the answer. In the neighborhood I grew up in, teen pregnancy was a HUGE issue when I was in high school. One of the local high schools actually had over 100 pregnant teen girls O_O

 

[junebug]

We had a sex ed class, but it didn't have an impact on me. All I can really remember is that we were taught about the female and male body organs (which, in this case, I'm sure was the reproductive organs, but again, the class barely had an impact on me, so I don't remember much) so maybe it wasn't even an actual sex ed class. Honestly, I've been sexually repressed my whole life.

I don't understand anything and that's one of the things that makes me afraid to put myself out there and go on a date because I don't even understand dating. I'm completely clueless in romance. Absolutely naive and it makes me afraid to open up because of bad experiences I've had with men trying to go out with me because it seems that every man I've come across, they don't really understand the value of having friendship and someone you can talk to beforehand.

I really value an emotional connection before physical connection.

They just want sex. That's what I've been taught about men in today's society.

It's terrible. I feel lonely and I'm afraid of asking a family member for help to try and learn more about this sort of thing and sexuality in general.

I mean, yesterday at work, I found out two of my coworkers were lesbians and the fact that they were talking so openly about it, it actually made me feel pretty uncomfortable.

I actually ridiculed the whole talk of sexuality inside my mind. It wasn't extremely terrible like bully talk and what not, but it was enough to reinforce the fact that them talking so openly about something I didn't understand made me feel left out and by myself.

Hard days, man. Hard days.

With this in mind, I definitely think they should have a fully detailed sex ed for schools. Otherwise, you end up like me: Alone and afraid of the unknown.

 

[SacredWarrior]

I really value an emotional connection before physical connection.

They just want sex. That's what I've been taught about men in today's society.

It's not just men. It's women as well. I speak from experience on that too. Try being more upfront and honest about what you want maybe? Sometimes being blunt works wonders.

I feel lonely and I'm afraid of asking a family member for help to try and learn more about this sort of thing and sexuality in general.

I felt the same way too but I eventually got over the fear :) Nothing to be afraid of. If you have good family members, things will go smoothly.

afraid of the unknown

Sometimes the unknown can be a blessing in disguise :)

 

[Vars]

I grew up in Georgia and to summarize our sex education, a high school near my county had a syphillis outbreak.

It was all scare tactics and abstinence only. We started having it in middle school, where they'd outright lie about shit. I specifically remember one time they brought in this huge plushie sperm (like several people had to hold it huge) and the point of the demonstration was to show that a sperm couldn't get through a condom but STDs totally could so don't bother to use condoms. .__.

High school they stopped outright lying about crap, but they did stretch the truth and focus on scare tactics. Like the slideshow of all the worst possible cases of STDs and how that was definitely how all STDs looked and if you had sex YOU WERE DEFINITELY GETTING ONE OF THEM.

My parents were very christian and my mom always referred to kissing as "Swapping spit" and to this day I still feel really awkward about kissing people's mouths.
I was extremely sexually repressed growing up, partly due to upbringing, sex ed, and some (possibly unrelated) personal issues. To the point where, despite the fact that I'd never been raped or molested (to my knowledge), I cried during or after sex until I was 22 years old.

I was so ignorant that I actually 100% trusted the pull out method until I was 22 - 23.

We never covered anything but straight people, at least the only coverage gays got was "Anal sex is even worse" so due to that and the culture of the bible belt I grew up extremely homophobic and sexist, a problem which wreaked havoc on my psyche because I myself am LGBT. I firmly believed that if you wore pink as a guy you were repressing some sort of homosexuality and that being gay was bad. This all took several years to undo, most of the undoing happened 21 - 24 years of age, ironically through my time in the military.


So, long story short, sex ed (at least in the south, in the early 2000's) absolutely sucked and I have very negative opinions of abstinence only.

 

[ᴛᴏᴄᴋᴀ]

I had two different versions of sex ed. My first was taught by a Sister Elizabeth, a nun who was probably old enough to be my great-grandmother. Let me tell you, if you want to leave a mental scar in your kids life, have a nun teach them sex ed! (Seriously, to this day I can remember the exact moment she described a penis and how I nearly suffocated myself with my hand over my mouth and nose trying not to bust out into laughter.) From 6th grade until 9th grade I believed that if I had sex even one time, not only would I get every STD around, but I'd end up pregnant, and I'd go straight to hell when I died. You would have thought that would have scared the shit out of everyone, but what most of us thought it was a joke. We had a woman, who we all naturally assumed had never had sex in her life, telling us how bad it was. That equation didn't lead to us being scared of it, but wanting to find out if it really was as bad as we were told. Out of a class of about 60 kids, I'd say about 45 of them lost their virginity before entering high school.

It wasn't until I went to high school and was taught about contraception that I actually took things seriously. Maybe it was the logic that because there was protection out there, there was something that required it to be used that brought reality home for me. It probably could have just been the fact that I'd matured a bit and finally grasped the fact that what a religious education taught me wasn't at all like the way things worked in reality. Or it simply could have been the fact that I wasn't told specifically not to have sex, but to be careful when I did. Either way, I have and will always believe that teaching kids about the risks of having sex while explaining how to protect themselves will always be the best option, even more now that I have kids.

 

[SacredWarrior]

I grew up in Georgia and to summarize our sex education, a high school near my county had a syphillis outbreak.

I grew up in Tennessee and I got sex ed through Girls Inc. They didn't use scare tactics luckily. Hot damn that must've been embarrassing O_O

 

[SacredWarrior]

I think it goes without saying that religion and sex ed don't mix

 

[Vars]

@SacredWarrior
Our schools did ours as far as I know. Sometimes it was teachers, other times they had someone else come in.
I don't know. I think religion and sex ed can mix, it just needs to be a fair representation of sex. I know catholic schools seem to do an ok job.

It is true that abstinence is the only 100% surefire way to avoid pregnancy and STIs, but there are ways to teach that without leaving students ignorant.

 

[junebug]

It's not just men. It's women as well. I speak from experience on that too. Try being more upfront and honest about what you want maybe? Sometimes being blunt works wonders.

That's a bit difficult for me; I mean, I'm already an honest person, but I'm also shy. There's been a lot of back and forth I've dealt with regarding being blunt (people tell me to watch what you say, others are like say what's on your mind, so it's a dilemma), so I'm still in my shell a little, unsure. I try though. I think I do, just takes me a while.

I felt the same way too but I eventually got over the fear :) Nothing to be afraid of. If you have good family members, things will go smoothly.

Mm, maybe my grandma would help lol. She's a bit overbearing though, it's awkward. I think my mom would be the best candidate tbh. Maybe I'll give her a call. I've talked to her before about having dreams about sex so the actual thing shouldn't be too bad. xP

 

[SacredWarrior]

That's a bit difficult for me; I mean, I'm already an honest person, but I'm also shy. There's been a lot of back and forth I've dealt with regarding being blunt (people tell me to watch what you say, others are like say what's on your mind, so it's a dilemma), so I'm still in my shell a little, unsure. I try though. I think I do, just takes me a while.

I was like that too until I turned 12 and stopped giving a damn about what others think :P Say what's on your mind and have no regrets. You only live once after all!

Mm, maybe my grandma would help lol. She's a bit overbearing though, it's awkward. I think my mom would be the best candidate tbh. Maybe I'll give her a call. I've talked to her before about having dreams about sex so the actual thing shouldn't be too bad. xP

I know that struggle trust me XD You'd be better off talking to your mom in this case!

 

[Cactus Jack]

I think at this point, there's not really any room for debate; there is a wealth of evidence in the form of studies, reviews, and meta-analyses, all of which quite conclusively demonstrate that comprehensive sex education leads to a decline in teenage pregnancy and STD rates-- and that furthermore, they tend to reduce bullying, abuse, and gender-based violence. Abstinence-only not only fails to reduce rates of sexual activity and teenage pregnancy but likely increases rates of the latter.

It doesn't have to be a religious matter, just a matter of looking at the evidence. Abstinence-only sex education plain and simple doesn't work. More to the point, what appears to be the central tenet of abstinence-only sex education-- that, by grounding sex education in a moral approach, teenagers will abstain from sexual activity until marriage-- simply isn't true; these same studies indicate that teenagers enrolled in abstinence-only classes are just as sexually active as those who are not, and possibly even more so. It just doesn't work.

 

[Mu]

Was sex ed taught to you in school? If so, what kind and did it have an impact? Do you think sex ed helps or is a hindrance?

I was taught sex ed in middle school and I was mostly taught about STDs, pregnancy, contraceptives, and consent. Abstinence was brought up but not forced upon either. It definitely had an impact on me and I'm grateful for that!

I think sex ed is very helpful and should definitely be in schools and readily available. Sexual repression definitely isn't the answer. In the neighborhood I grew up in, teen pregnancy was a HUGE issue when I was in high school. One of the local high schools actually had over 100 pregnant teen girls O_O

Yes. Sex education is mandatory at my school in year 9 and year 10. We talked about STDs, contraceptives, and consent. I think we touched on abstinence as a 'method' as well. I think it's important to talk about STDs because I don't think a lot of people really understand how important that is at that age and the consequences of it. I think if you continued health classes you'd learn about pregnancy as well, but I dropped it and didn't take it into my senior years.

Honestly, all schools should teach sex ed. I think some religious schools here do as well but in a more scientific way.

 

[Dipper]

Yes, 100%. My school's SexEd relied on scare tactics rather than education, so I had to ask my parents for actual details (they weren't afraid to explain it all in the least).

Anyway, kids need to know this stuff. Growing up knowing nothing about sex other than 'don't have it' isn't the right way to raise the next generation. Teach them what it is, teach them how to deal with it, and realize that teenagers are hormonal little hellspawn. They aren't going to listen to your abstinence lectures.

 

[Shiri]

My teachings in middle school were very practical and scientific which is great in a study sort of way, but lacked a lot in the emotional aspects. If anything we were taught not to have any feelings about sex or toward sexual partners. STDs were covered, condoms were discussed, not much was said about other contraceptives, consent was also brought up but in a very vague, one-sided sort of way. It was never brought up that men needed to give consent and I found/find that very alarming. It was always "make sure she's ready", "don't pressure her". And then there was that birthing tape that I could have done without. I'm sure it's a "beautiful" moment when you're one of the parents, but uh...I could have just looked at a diagram and understand how that all works wiothout the grunting, muffled squealing, and... fluids.

High school teachings pretty much didn't happen. My health class got behind due to the nutrition unit and sex ed ended up never happening. Something about the state making nutrition a required curriculum so we couldn't skip it like we could sex ed, which in my eyes is really dumb. And then later I find out things they were teaching me in nutrition was from severely outdated material anyway. *sigh*

So yeah, I believe sex ed should be required in schooling. It involves one of our most basic functions like eating and sleeping.

 

[An Otaku]

I went through about.... ten or so different schools before high school graduation. It's entirely plausible I just wasn't around when they were doing the course proper.

That being said, the closest I personally got whilst in school was a ten minute lecture in the gymnasium from my PE teacher around the 8th grade, I believe, who casually/vaguely went over the technicals of sex. Then we went back to playing dodge ball.

The US education system is.... well, it's the US education system.

 

[Cactus Jack]

Sex education vis a vis dodgeball? There might be something there...

 

[IntrusivePenDesperateSword]

Aside from the obviously strange things mentioned here, my base sex ed has been basically like most of yours.

For twelfth grade biology, however, things got a lot more scientific. While the main focus of the chapter was all other animals, humans were covered as well, including menstruation and a short "You all know the basics, yes? Great, let's get back to the other animals."

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

Our own sex ed only lasted half a semester, divided us by boys and girls, and gave parents permission to have their kids not take it... So not the greatest.
But assuming you actually did take it? It actually covered most of the basics, though it's primary focus was four things.

1. How to put on a condom
2. Looking at pictures of STD's
3. The "order" of having sex. Should you put a condom on first or arouse first? etc.
4. Say no to sex if you don't got any condoms on hand. Otherwise? Eh, it's your life.

It wasn't the worst thing out there, but it certainly was lacking.

\people tell me to watch what you say

Don't go out with those people then.
The second someone start's to try to control what you think/say (regardless of the reasons they give) means they care more about having power over you, upholding a social agenda etc. than you.
That should be your signal that they're not someone worth developing romantic interest into.

It was never brought up that men needed to give consent and I found/find that very alarming. It was always "make sure she's ready", "don't pressure her".

This isn't surprising. Society has often been desperate to paint women as a the victims of sex and men as the aggressors, regardless of context.

 

[junebug]

Don't go out with those people then.
The second someone start's to try to control what you think/say (regardless of the reasons they give) means they care more about having power over you, upholding a social agenda etc. than you.
That should be your signal that they're not someone worth developing romantic interest into.

I haven't actually gone out with anyone like that. These are just people in general that tell me this. :)

 

[LuckycoolHawk9]

I didn't per se have a sex ed class. New York refers to it as Health class and you take it in middle school and then take it again high school ( your 12th grade year) It covers sex. But it also covered mental diseases, alcoholism, drugs amongst other things. I personally think health class is better as it covers all the adult vices as a whole.