Editor's note: This article contains graphic language.
In our society today, many schools teach sexual education at a young age. Sex Ed classes are typically introduced to the curriculum early on in junior high, or sometimes sooner. Though it is important to educate students while they’re young and more impressionable, I feel this early education is the cause for a big gap in the knowledge of college level students.
I was introduced to sexual transmitted infection in the seventh grade. I vividly remember seeing a vagina with genital warts fill up the projector screen while I did my best to keep my lunch down.
For a child who has yet to even see her own vagina, this was a traumatic experience, and I didn’t have enough time to recover before the screen filled with a giant flaccid penis covered in herpes sores. I was scarred.
I bet my experiences are not unlike many of your own, and this is why I think we are failing as a generation when it comes to our knowledge on sexual health.
There are three reasons why I believe Sex Ed classes early on in school are just not effective.
1. The lessons are not applicable.
Very few fifth and sixth graders haven’t even hit puberty yet, but they’re learning about condoms. It doesn’t make sense to be teaching students about something that isn’t relevant.
2. The classes utilize scare tactics.
Sex Ed programs, much like drug and alcohol awareness programs, operate on scare tactics. They show kids horrifying pictures and paint a worst-case scenario for kids that end up deterring them from wanting to learn.
3. The curriculum isn’t inclusive.
Students learn about condoms and abstinence, but do they also learn about anal and oral? I don’t recall ever being taught about different forms of intercourse and the benefits or risks that go alone with each. This information is valuable. If Sex Ed is going to be taught, it should be all encompassing.
According to the center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), young people between the ages of 15 to 24 are responsible for half of all new STIs, and one in four sexually active adolescent females has an STI.
The CDC also claims that young adults ages 20 to 24 are at a higher risk of contracting an STI for behavioral, biological and cultural reasons. The lack of sexual education among this demographic could be considered the main cause of this statistic.
Imagine a university with a mandatory Sex Ed program. Where part of your general college requirements was to learn about how to be safe and what to look out for.
You would be learning about things that could actually be happening in your every day life. The connections you would be able to make from the classroom to the bedroom would be invaluable. It just makes sense to be reteaching this knowledge when the students need it most.
I want to live on a campus where I don’t hear about Chlamydia outbreaks or spreading Syphilis, and the only way we can accomplish this is by re-opening the door on Sex Ed and bringing it back into the classrooms at the university level.
Haley Dake is a senior studying Journalism at Ohio University. What misconceptions did you used to have about sex? Let Haley know by emailing her at @hd883312@ohio.edu
