Sex Education, Why Should We Care?

Sexual education is a highly debatable topic, but many believe the information taught to students should be abstinence-only. Abstinence-only education has been put in place in order to educate students about the social, mental, and physical benefits of resisting from all sexual activity. It emphasizes the unsafe impacts of participating in sexual activity before marriage and having casual sex. It also promotes the idea that sexual abstinence is the only way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. Abstinence education only permits the discussion of contraception and condoms in terms of failure in order to utterly discourage casual sex (Wilgoren, 1). Along with teaching the physical dangers of sex, abstinence education also teaches the mental dangers of sex (Abstinence-Only Education, 1). Sex has many risks and dangers that are not

The role of educating students about the importance of healthy sexual relationships has fallen hard and fast on public schools. School aged boys and girls are not receiving information from their parents on what decisions they should make in regards to sex. Parents are finding this topic of conversation too taboo to breach and as a result, students are getting what little information they are receiving from school. Less then half of school aged adolescents talk to their parents about sex and abstinence (Smith, 2005).

We have all heard the stories about the rise in teenage pregnancies, girls dropping out of school to care for their newborns, and even those who get pregnant on purpose. This new trend is everywhere. Most parents fail to have the “talk” with their children and are left without the proper education regarding sex until its too late. With the current rates of teenage pregnancy correlated with the current rates of spreading epidemics of STD’s and HIV/AIDS, steps should be taken in an effort to aid the situation. Schools are a main source of information and education for teens, and are in a unique position that can provide adolescents with knowledgeable skills and understanding that promote sexual health. With consistent speculation surrounding

While in high school, most teenagers between the ages 13-17, will have attended at least one sex education class. Instead of using the “Abstinence- Only” approach, schools should consider on teaching students the “Safe- Sex” approach to increase their knowledge on potential health risks involving sex. Increasing their knowledge not only increases their awareness, but lets them use their knowledge in the real world and let them form their own decisions, whether they be bad or good.

Since the HIV/AIDS epidemic began in the U.S. in the early 1980s the issue of sex education for American youth has had the attention of the nation. There are about 400,000 teen births every year in the U.S, with about 9 billion in associated public costs. STI contraction in general, as well as teen pregnancy, have put the subject even more so on the forefront of the nation’s leading issues. The approach and method for proper and effective sex education has been hotly debated. Some believe that teaching abstinence-only until marriage is the best method while others believe that a more comprehensive approach, which includes abstinence promotion as well as contraceptive information, is necessary. Abstinence-only program curriculums disregard

Abstinence is a remarkable topic to be taught, however, should not be the only choice taught, and it’s impractical to expect the youth to hold out until marriage. Abstinence, along with STD and pregnancy prevention is imperative for the youth in the nation. It is factual that accepting promiscuity as part of our culture might cause a rise in STD's, teen pregnancy, and Aid’s. These increases are the reason we must begin early in educating children about the diseases, how to prevent them, and how to practice safe sex. Schools are insane for not lecturing the importance, or proper use of

Not only does abstinence only education exclude adolescents of various sexualities, but it fails to regard the health of teenaged girls as well. The repression of female representation in health courses has contributed to the magnification of the gender stereotypes, where women are ideally portrayed as pure vessels if they remain virgins until marriage. Therefore, young girls should remain chaste and pubescent boys naturally have a rampant sexuality due to their uncontrollable hormones. Traditional gender roles are then reinforced, disregarding female sexuality thus alienating them within their health courses since they are not educationally included. This form of instruction censors out necessary sexual guidance concerning their respective reproductive health. For example, details about contraception, abortion, human sexuality, and sexual assault specifically concerning females are neglected within the classroom. Health courses have long-established condoms as the popularized and primary way of having protective sex. But what school boards don’t incorporate in their curricula is that there are various methods of contraception, precisely for women. For example, there are birth control pills, hormone implants, cervical caps, and vaginal rings. Although these preventative measures do not safeguard for STI and HIV contraction, they can decrease the likelihood of having an unintended pregnancy by ceasing ovulation or preventing sperm flow in the vagina by increasing the hormones

Sexual education teaches adolescents about the use of birth control, their bodies, STD’s, and pregnancy. Due to the awareness of sexual education, adolescents are more careful about sexual intercourse. The pregnancy rate has reached the lowest in modern era between 1990-2010. It declined to 51% pregnancies per 1000 females ages 14-19 to 57.4%. This is the lowest recorded since 1973. Sexual education was not offered in schools until 1983 and many people had close to no knowledge about the options. Even though teens today are aware of their options today, they do not take proper precautions.

In both cases, Abstinence-only education did not direct them, in any way, to abstain from sex (Valenti). Therefore, given that so many teens will not desist from sex, effective sex education programs have the responsibility to help teens to be aware of the risks and consequences that come along with sexuality, like early pregnancy or STDs (Alford). Such effective programs should employ personalized interviews and follow-ups for each student and parents; as well as committees including doctors, psychologists, pediatricians, and real young people with shocking experience as a teen

After addressing that abstinence-only education alienates students of various sexualities and genders, I will point out some of the possible consequences that could occur because of this to promote the importance of incorporating comprehensive sex education in middle/high schools. Specifically, I note that during “puberty is when a majority of adolescents participate in sexual encounters”. Therefore, teenaged students who do not conform into traditional heteronormative identities that learn about their reproductive health from an exclusive, heterosexual point of view, are more likely to contract STIs, HIV, and have unintended pregnancies. To prevent teens from these minority populations from facing harmful health consequences, it’s important to spread awareness on treatments, medication, contraception, and places to receive medical attention on all sexual matters.

Teenage sexual activity has sparked an outcry within the nation. With such activity comes a high price. Studies have shown that there has been a significant rise in the number of children with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), emotional and psychological problems, and out-of-wedlock childbearing. Sex has always been discussed publically by the media, television shows, music and occasionally by parents and teachers in educational context. Teens hear them, and as the saying goes, “monkey see, monkey do”, they are tempted to experiment with it. Therefore, it is important for every teenager to be aware of the outcome associated with premature-sex. If students are educated about the impact of

Rates of sexually transmitted disease (STD), teen pregnancy, and teen births are higher in the United States than in the majority of other industrialized countries (Kohler, Manhart, & Lafferty, 2008), indicating the controversial role that sex education plays in the initiation of sexual activity. In contempt of teen pregnancy, birth and abortion rates are the highest among other developed countries (Kohler et al., 2008), and few public health evaluations on the effectiveness of formal sex education have been conducted. With a large social issue prominent in the United States, it is imperative to determine the differences based on formal sex education and whether abstinence-only education, comprehensive education or no education decrease health risks among adolescents (Kohler et al., 2008).

People look at this type of teaching as planting a “seed” for sex in their minds. This is very untrue. Teenagers do not need help to think about sex, teenagers already think about sex. With the influx of hormones during puberty primary and secondary sex characteristics become more noticeable and desirable to teenagers. Sexual education does more good than harm and actually helps adolescents development. Studies conducted by the World Heath Organizations has established that sexual education programs both abstinence and comprehensive based programs help delay and reduce sexual encounters. Teaching adolescents sexual education improves knowledge and understanding. This can intern result in the building of autonomy and confidence. Adolescents are faced with what Erik Erikson’s describes as identity versus role confusion (Berger, 2014). In this crisis adolescents must discover who they are so they can plan for the future. Sexual education programs in school can help adolescents plan for the future. By giving them information about sex it can help to avoid unwanted pregnancies along with transmissions of diseases. Because after all education will not plant any seeds, just help plants grow successfully.

Sexual education is extremely important in informing youth about sex. More specifically, sex education “plays an essential role in preventing unplanned pregnancy and the transmission of sexual transmitted infections (STI)” (Grose et al., 2014, p. 742). Research shows that sex education in schools “may be well positioned to address social factors that are empirically linked to negative sexual health outcomes, such as traditional social norms surrounding genders and sexuality” (Grose et al., 2014, p. 742). Observing, the American ‘abstinence only’ sex education, it is not any form of education. It is telling children that they should not be having sex and that if they do there is a problem. Furthermore, it does not give the option to those that wish to have sex any information on how to practice safe sex, prevent pregnancy and

School systems in the United states have been implementing sexual education into classrooms. Arguments are abundant when dealing with such fragile situations and there are many advantages and disadvantages of sexual education being taught in the public schools. It seems that most parents are either strongly for or against sex education classes, but there are a few parents that are on both sides. In fact, there are more parents that support sex education classes. However, there are pros and cons that must be considered by parents when dealing with sex education classes that one would not have to consider with a less controversial topic such as math or reading. In general, parents need to be aware of his or her own family or religious beliefs and values and know their child’s intellect and maturity levels. Debates about sex education have fixated on two different approaches: “safe sex” courses, which inspire teens to utilize contraceptives, especially condoms, when having sex, and “abstinence edification”, which encourage teens to delay sexual activity. Teaches teens that abstinence is the best way to prevent teen pregnancies and sexual transmitted diseases including HIV. Throughout the United States, only some teens are given sex education, however others are not being taught the right way leading them to make poor choices.