[Mo]

Most of you lot are young enough to have gone through sex education lessons at school. When I was at school it was reproduction in biology and the odd mumbling here and there from the PE mistress about periods.

Why then do we hear that the numbers of teenage pregnancies in GB are the highest in Europe and occurance of STDs reaching mad levels


It seems to me that more knowledge about sex = more sex happening.
Am I right?


[Michael_W : Capitalised Title]

[Neo]

Hrm.. I have mixed feelings about this.
Even after the sex education lessons, I still feel like I know very little about sex (still a virgin).

One thing for sure is that the more knowledge about sex you have, the more curious you are to have it.. ops:

[kittykat]

I remember mine. I was 10 and it was a video and then a class discussion in which no1 took part. Then we were told about bodily hygiene. I knew about both these topics in detail way before we were taught about them. I remember one girl having to run out before she fainted and threw up. I dont think any1 pays any attention to them. The number of people round here who get pregnant at school must be higher than ever, yet we're taught about it more and more at school. Schools even give out free condoms, but no-one dares to go and ask for them so whats the point.

[Michael_W]

Don't know how sex education is taught these days, wasn't much when I was at school, but maybe a few explicit videos on childbirth and the hardship of looking after babies and young children would put a few youngsters off dabbling in sexual activity too early.......just a thought !

[kittykat]

Its taught from a very scientific video these days (if you count my sex ed which was 8 years ago as these days) depicting the biological aspect of it with scientific illustrations and animated clips of sperm meeting egg and baby growing in womb. Thats probably why no1 listens.

[t020]

I think that sex education, and drugs education for that matter, simply don't work. The message is fundamentally 'heres how you have sex, heres how you use condoms, now don't have sex!', as well as 'heres what different drugs do to you, now don't take them!'. First of all the kid is now armed with knowing how to do the things they shouldn't, and secondly the fact that they shouldn't and have been told not to will encourage some of them even more! Theres certain things that should be left to the parents, and sex education is one of them.

[Neo]

Originally posted by "t020"

Theres certain things that should be left to the parents, and sex education is one of them.

That seems to be kinda old fashioned now..
Besides, I'm not close to my Dad, my parents are divorced and him telling me about that stuff would just be..... Weird.

[robh]

Originally posted by "Neo"

One thing for sure is that the more knowledge about sex you have, the more curious you are ...

...and end up with the wrong person because the curiosity about sex has overwhelmed all vestiges of rationality and sex has been mistaken for love or screwing around or getting involved in "unconventional" activities in a continual pursuit of something better. (There is something better, best done at home alone - a really good chocolate fudge cake, no that's not a euphamism! Yes I mean eat it! No it doesn't even need to be the Alice B Toklas recipe! OK I'm getting old!).

My small son just had "the lesson" at school and brought the booklets home, they seemed to be more about puberty than sex though (and I was surprised that both girls and boys were given both the one about periods and the one about wet dreams and stuff).

However he's seen Monty Python's "Meaning of Life" recently so he's probably utterly confused. Among other things there's the Catholic children singing "every sperm is sacred" and then John Cleese giving an utterly emotionless sex education lesson - including a (not very explicit) practical demonstration... Maybe the schools should use that as their model, he made it all sound about as exciting as "double maths". Anyway son's verdict was that "Life of Brian" and "Holy Grail" were much better. He simply didn't get the sex stuff - a bit like the innuendo in Pantomime, the kids just wonder why the adults are laughing some of the time.

[Clik32]

When I was at school, it was Y6 I think... the boys were took to one room, the girls to another. Girls were given a talk about periods, pregnancy etc. The boys were shown a video about 'how things happen/work.' It was quite strange come to think of it. When we got secondary school though we maybe had 2/3 talks about pregnancy which was mostly things like, "Go see the school nurse" bla de bla. It didn't do much for me really. I think you learn more things from your mates than anywhere else... I know I for one did!!
Chloé

[robh]

Originally posted by "Chloe"

I think you learn more things from your mates than anywhere else... I know I for one did!!

One of my wives (no that doesn't mean I've got more than one!) had been told nothing and ran to her mum when her first period came... Mum's reaction was "you'd best not mess with the boys now then" and that was it. So she went and asked her best friend who was a year older and explained what she needed to know. So I reckon it's good if the schools cover the essentials in Y6 - but having fore-warned the parents so they can pre-empt the school or at least be ready for any supplementary questions.

[RPG]

Originally posted by "robh"

One of my wives

'ello dave... you're my wiifee nowww

[*Twinkle*]

Hmm sex education in schools...

*Caprice wracks her brain*

Well, its been a while since they taught us anything, thats for sure. In Year 6, just before we went to Secondary school, we were taught the "key words" how and why women menstruated and drew diagrams of the penis.

Looking back, we weren't old enough to need to learn the emotional side to it all, but as you can see they didn't teach us much!

When I got to Secondary school, I think we had a unit on it in year 7. Once again, we were labelling diagrams, but this time it got a little more practical. I think one practical lesson we did in science was testing the absorbancy of tampons/pads. The moral of the lesson (for the ones who had enough about them to work it out) was that women have the choice, and looking at absorbancies prooved that we could choose either according to our needs and such.

Then, there was an absence of sex education. In Year 9, we had a half and hour session on sex with a guest speeker. She was the most helpful source that school had provided us with. She didn't make us draw diagrams, she didn't talk about key words etc, instead, she did the one thing we all responded well to, she let us join in and participate! We handed round various methods of contraception, talked about how they worked, what they looked like, if they were a good form of contraception or not. Then she showed us how to put a condom on a model penis. (Not the cucumber or banana we'd expected!)

And that was all we had!

[Tony Ruscoe]

Originally posted by "caprice"

We handed round various methods of contraception, talked about how they worked, what they looked like, if they were a good form of contraception or not. Then she showed us how to put a condom on a model penis. (Not the cucumber or banana we'd expected!)

And that was all we had!

We had a similar thing when I was at school, except the teacher was very nervous and she had a rather over-sized cucumber. We learnt a couple of things from the lesson, but the main things was that "Femidoms" should never have been invented ! (They're simply horrible things.)

Again, the focus was on "how to" and not "why". One major problem with sex education these days is that it's called "sex" and not "reproduction". It's almost being taught like it's a recreational activity.

If they taught more kids that having sex results in a baby being born (and didn't emphasise the fact that it's actually preventable if you use one of the many methods on contraception) then that would scare more kids IMO. The kids are shown condoms, told that they're 99% successful and the kids think "I'll never be that 1 out of 100" - and they're wrong...

[steelblade]

Sex education in schools is and has always been absolutly shocking!

By the time our school got around to giving us "the talk" 3/4 of the class were already having sex!

I think the best way to educate kids about sex and drugs is to be totally honest. Bring teenage mothers, people with aids, heroin addicts etc...into class to tel the kids how things really are.

I think it would be wise to teach the kids the emotional side of sex, not just the physical. They need to know how to handle feelings of hurt and rejection, how to keep their self respect and not get blagged into doing things that can wait.

I wish I had had good sex education then I might not have been so stupid when I was younger.

[halevan]

I have always maintained that sex education in schools is wrong, children are naturally curious about their sexual organs anyway, so why tell them what and how to do it, it is simply encouraging them to experiment, hence many under age pregnancies.

It does not need a brain surgeons intelligence to know what young children will do with that knowledge, seems to me that it is just one more example of perverts in our education system who must get some kind of thrill from talking to little boys and girls in this way.

When I went to school. we were allowed our innocence in our young days and the word SEX was taboo both at home and in school, these idiots who advocate sex education shouldn't need to ask WHY when little girls become pregnant at ten , eleven and twelve years of age!!!

[Mo]

Perhaps school isn't really the best place for kids to learn about sex. Mabe we as parents should be sitting our kids down and telling them about sex in a way that emphasises the importance of love, relationships and respect, rather then merely the act of sex.

One thing worth mentioning here is that when the teenage pregnancy rate is worked out it includes all teenagers up to and including 19 years old. This takes in married teenagers as well, so like all things involving statistics it is slightly misleading.

[cosywolf]

In a perfect world, every parent would sit their child down and talk to them clearly and reasonably about sex. Even more ideally, as was the case in my family with both my sister and I, there were books available from the year dot - picture books like 'Where did I come from', to 'sistertalk', to a great book, very dry and 1960s, that explained sex from an adult point of view that was very useful after adolescence when I started to have more detailed questions. Despite all this information, actually BECAUSE OF IT, I was very grown up about my attitude to sex, knew the pitfalls, and did not start until the age of 18 which I don't think is too early, kept it to one special partner at a time, and never had any unfortunate accidents. At 18 now, my sister has followed the same balanced path. Both of us can have casual conversations with our parents about it as well.
Unfortunately, many parents are uncomfortable with this level of openness, or do not care, or grew up expecting to have children early and expect the same for their kids, or or or...
So what is needed in my opinion is sex education at school that addresses real issues, is not pathetically self-conscious and uncomfortable, does not hide behind ridiculous euphemisms like rabbits birds and bees, and starts from an early age.

My two cents worth.

[Geoff]

Older generations didn't have sex education lessons. The problem with sexual related diseases is growing, i.e. implying that the old generation (with no lessons) has performed (excuse pun) better than our current "educated" generation.

So, why is it that the more we experiment with different sex education classes and teaching styles, the worse the problem becomes? Very odd!

[Shiesh]

Resurrecting this thread as came across this clip tonight!!

Birds and Bees

I found it a very informative clip for kids - I hope nobody is offended by it!

[DragonofAna]

This has been posted about before. So my reply is unchanged - during sex ed we all asked the female teacher for practical.

Old ones are always the best ones ...... unless they aren't.

Dragon