Personal Narrative: My Trip To The Sex Ed Boot Camp

Human sexuality can be fascinating, complex, contradictory, and sometimes frustrating. Sexuality is interwoven into every aspect of being human; therefore, having knowledge about sex is as essential as having education about human anatomy. However, it is highly recommended to pay close attention when sex education is delivered to youths. (Donatelle 171)

Ever wonder why sex ed, comprehensive sex ed, abstinence education, silver ring thing, and nearly all the myriad of sexual education and chastity programs out there are miserable failures? (Let’s face it. Statistically, they are.)

Sexual education is an important topic which as to be addressed due to the growing debates as to weather it should be implemented within the school system. The Canadian Guidelines for Sexual Health Education states that sexual education curriculums addresses a range of topics including “puberty, effective contraceptive methods, prevention of STI/HIV, communication skills, sexual orientation, interpersonal relationships, and media literacy” (Public Health Agency of Canada). Children need to address such issues early in order to protect them from early initiation of sexual activity, sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy. The issue is then weather or not parents support such a program.

The first argument made by those who are against schools teaching sexual education to their children state that the school has no right to teach their children about sex. Those parents argue that they can educate their child themselves about the dangers of sex. Parents fear what the schools are teaching their child, and fear that they will become “more accepting of sexual behavior” (Lenth). Another fear is that the classes will make students believe that all teens have sex, peer pressuring them into having

All three of these sex educators also spoke to different elements that make the current high school sex education system damaging to its students. Ms. Corrado related: " I think one of the big things is fear mongering around STIs. Which leads to higher incident rates instead of actually reducing incident rates, because fear will not actually stop them from "doing it", but it just leads to people not knowing safer sex techniques and not knowing they are transmitting [STIs].” This supports the CDC report mentioned earlier, about the increasing number of students engaging in sexual activity and becoming infected with STIs, despite being in abstinence-based programs. For Ms. Basler-Francis the main issue was something else entirely: she believes

One in four teens are diagnosed with STDs every year in the united states. There are 41,731,233 teens in the united states, so that is roughly 10,432,808.25 kids receiving STDs in the united states every year. With fewer than half of high schools and only a fifth of middle schools teaching all 26 topics recommended by the Centers for Disease Control Team(2015), these numbers shouldn’t be surprising. The majority of teens in the United States are taught that abstinence is the only way to prevent pregnancy or STDs, but in today's society temptation is very prevalent. In the United States 46% of high school age kids have had sex Conklin (2014), and represent 50% of all the new STDs dosomething.org(2014). It is

My best friend Terri had set me up to met with a Sex Therapist, Samantha or Sam. Sam and I hit it off and after six months we were engaged. Sam had curly brown hair that fell in large ringlets to almost her waist. Her hair beautifully framed her oval face with big brown eyes that would sparkle when she was happy. She has serious lips which softened when she kissed me and a button nose. Sam was shorter than me about 5’7” and weighted no more than 130 pounds and had the most wonderful size 36 B/C breasts, too big for most B cups but just a little loose for C cups, in which she complained about often. There was the daily shedding of the bra when she got home that I often looked forward to as she would say something about ‘releasing the girls’

According to the Journal of Adolescent Health, “when comparing adolescents who reported receiving a comprehensive sex education with those who received an abstinence-only education, comprehensive sex education was associated with a 50% lower risk of teen pregnancy;” and “abstinence-only education did not reduce the likelihood of engaging in vaginal intercourse.” A sexually active teenaged girl that does not utilize contraception has a ninety percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year. Three out of ten American girls will get pregnant at least once by the age of twenty with nearly 750,000 teen pregnancies each year (Do Something). A great percent of these annual pregnancies are not the fault of the students directly involved, but rather the ignorance placed onto them by an abstinence only curriculum. According to Columbia University researchers, virginity pledge platforms increase pledge-takers’ risk of pregnancy. The study determined that 88 percent of pledge-takers instigated sex prior to marriage. Pledge-takers were less expected to use contraception when they did commence in sex (McKeon). If these young adults do not know how to protect themselves, while being taught that sex is a wrongful act out of wedlock and going against basic human nature, then they cannot protect

You and Rhett were spending a quiet evening at home watching a fascinating t.v. documentary about "strange" sex related practices and disorders, using the commercial breaks that you usually would have fast-forwarded through to remark on some of the segments.

There is much controversy over which form of sex education should be taught, comprehensive sex education, or abstinence-only sex education. The definition for comprehensive sex education is responsible and balanced sexuality education that seeks to assist young people in understanding a positive view of sexuality, provide them with information and skills about caring for their sexual health, and help them acquire skills to make decisions now and in the future. It is medically accurate and provides information about abstinence and contraceptives as tools to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. On the other hand, abstinence only sex education is a form of sex education that teaches abstinence from sex. This type of sex education promotes sexual abstinence until marriage and avoids discussion of use of contraceptives. Comprehensive sex education goes against some family morals and encourages teenagers to have sex. But abstinence only sex education does not teach students enough about sex or how to protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy. Comprehensive sex education should be mandatory in all of our nation’s schools.

I first learned about the birds and the bees by my grandmother giving me “the talk”! It was completely horrible and embarrassing at the time but in the long run it was better to know than to be completely in the dark about the situation. My parents never talked to me about sex. In middle school, I remember having to complete a comprehensive sex education program. Hopefully, sex education programs have become more effective today. I felt at the time it wasn’t a very informative program and could have used more structure. The key is to provide students/teens with as much information as possible on the subject matter.

I completely agree with Ralph DiClemente. When I was taught Sex Education, in sixth grade, we were taught the basics. How to use a condom, sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy. I think that with younger people, when they are in relationships, they are not really sure how it works. Not just sex, but relationships in general. As an effect of that, he or she does not assert what they want or what they think is right, they go with the flow. Why? Because honestly they do not know better. With these classes of empowerment, I feel that they will get a better understanding that it is okay to voice your opinion and set boundaries and just put out there that if they are not okay with something, like not using a condom. “Knowing how to communicate

uring our last class, we learned about four different activism project ideas. Of the four, two focused on sexual education of young adults, one on sexual violence on college campuses, and the last about increasing abortion access. All four projects were feminist in that they all had components of increasing women’s equality. Both sexual education programs as well as the project on sexual violence prevention would work to benefit women socially. The Abortion Access program covers all three grounds of feminism: the program would advocate for the social, political, and economic equality of women.

The reason parents are fearful of the sex talk is because they cannot or do not want to picture their child having sex, even though it is a possibility, and the child will feel embarrassed to have their parents talk to them about sex. Because of these feelings, the talk repeatedly becomes delayed, and it either does not happen at all or it happens too late after their child has already had sex. “In the latest study on parent-child talks about sex and sexuality, researchers found that more than forty percent of adolescents had had intercourse before talking to their parents about safe sex, birth control or sexually transmitted diseases” (Park).

Sex education should be increased in schools. Nearly one million women under the age of 20 get pregnant each year. That means 2800 women get pregnant each day. If students are educated about the effects sex has on their lives, it lessens their chance of having children at an early age. Knowledge about sex can also lessen the chance of kids receiving STDS.