the value of sex ed

[kimpossible]

Do you feel you had a good source of information or thorough education on sex and health growing up? Why or why not? Did your school have a good program? Did you learn more on your own?

Did it prepare you for taking responsibility for your own sexual health as well as overall health?

[hooligan]

I think I am and I'm really careful in terms of sexual health and overall health. I also believe that the current state of sex education isn't that great, I believe there needs to be more openness when we discuss sexual topics and more funding. There should be a more liberal policy with the ability for real educators to come in and discuss these things with students.

[Commando_turned_MD]

I had sex ed in the 7th grade. That was the biggest waste of time. The only thing that was taught was safe sex and basic health issues, i.e., wash under the foreskin, guy on guy is bad, girl on girl is bad, etc..etc..
Furthermore, they would use these cheesy cartoons to reinforce abstinence...Lame..

I learned more reading Playboy (the articles), Penthouse (the pictures), and Hustlers (techniques).

[BigLew]

I wish someone would have warned me about not not grinding my teeth I used to get killer headaches after sex.

[Hiroshi2]

My own........................my parents never really said too much, except wear a condom. My mother would never say some shit like that though, she's a devout Christian. She would say abstinate.

[nonamerasian]

My mom was already very open.

And peers.

I already knew a lot by the time I had sex ed, but I did learn more about contraception and the resources out there.

I think I had good sex ed, particularly my last year during high school, because I had some very open teachers.

I think I had my most unapproachable teacher during eighth grade. It would have been better to have more easy to talk to teachers then. When some students were already experimenting and wanting info.

[nola]

I loved health ed which I only had in the ninth grade. There was alot about nutrition, avoiding STDs, how to take care of yourself over your lifetime. I like Joycelyn Elder's idea of comprehensive sex and health ed from K-12. They have comp sex ed in Sweden and their teen pregnancy rate is very low as a result.

[truMp]

I learned more from friends, but it did help a little.

[applehead]

all i remember from sex ed is to check
for holes in a condom by making it into a balloon first.
and i don't even know if that's valid.
for me sex ed was learning about the changes
a woman's body goes through during pregnancy
and the differences and similaries a boy and
a girl goes through during puberty.
i don't know. that's really not my idea of sex ed.

all the stuff i did learn was from friends and books.
i would really really like a more integrated,
more demanding sex ed class.
make it required for graduation, with exams
finals and stuff.

but i had HIV information classes
and they should hire more informed people
to teach those classes.
i had lots of misleading information about
HIV because of that class.

it's also dangerous for kids to have to
learn this stuff from friends. i mean, how informed
are they really?

[deez nuts]

waste of time.

i learned more about sex from pornos i.e magazines, movies and 976 numbers and that neighborhood slut that'll show us her privates for $1 and for $5 she'll let you play with them when i was in 6-7th grade.

[ism]

all i remember from sex ed is to check
for holes in a condom by making it into a balloon first.
and i don't even know if that's valid.You're right, you're not supposed to do that. Don't blow in it, don't fill it with water, don't physically test it. It will weaken it and create an improper fit, increasing the chance of breakage or misuse.

If you use packaged condoms (never used unpackaged, anyway), they are sterile and tested. As long as they haven't been sitting in the sun, or gone through the wash that's as safe as they're going to get.

[applehead]

You're right, you're not supposed to do that. Don't blow in it, don't fill it with water, don't physically test it. It will weaken it and create an improper fit, increasing the chance of breakage or misuse.

If you use packaged condoms (never used unpackaged, anyway), they are sterile and tested. As long as they haven't been sitting in the sun, or gone through the wash that's as safe as they're going to get.

hah. you see what i mean
about misinformed teachers.
gaaaah.
it did sound really stupid which is why
i probably remembered it all these years.

[kimpossible]

Did anyone go to a source outside of parents, school and neighborhood sluts to like a Planned Parenthood? Doesn't have to be Planned Parenthood and I imagine in the age of the Internet you can get most of the info online.

and

How much do you know about your genitalia and reproductive system? In function, medical terms for parts, and signs of illness and health?

[deez nuts]

How much do you know about your genitalia and reproductive system?

i knew about the anatomy of the reproductive system before i knew about sex. anatomy always fascinated me. i was dissecting and examining critters at a very early age.

i bet my parents were thinking my possible career choices were: serial killer or surgeon.

[moJo]

How much do you know about your genitalia and reproductive system? In function, medical terms for parts, and signs of illness and health?
not too much. i remember i tuned out once the classes got all science-y.

i had sex ed in 7th and 8th grade, and during a health class in a summer program, and then again sophomore year of high school. i don't think i learned too much, but i supposed it worked for me. scared me into being safe.

oh i remember very vividly that you hafta pinch the top of the condom when you slide it over the cucumber. i mean, penis. hehe. i think we used bananas, in one class, instead. but mostly, cucumbers.

[YuheiCarreau]

all i remember from sex ed is to check
for holes in a condom by making it into a balloon first.
and i don't even know if that's valid.
for me sex ed was learning about the changes
a woman's body goes through during pregnancy
and the differences and similaries a boy and
a girl goes through during puberty.
i don't know. that's really not my idea of sex ed.


Did you see the video with the pancakes? My sister wouldn't eat pancakes for years after that.

[ism]

Did anyone go to a source outside of parents, school and neighborhood sluts to like a Planned Parenthood? Doesn't have to be Planned Parenthood and I imagine in the age of the Internet you can get most of the info online.

and

How much do you know about your genitalia and reproductive system? In function, medical terms for parts, and signs of illness and health?UrbanDictionary is great for finding a definitive answer to what the hell "UFIA" and "Hot Karls" are.

My dad rounded up us kids at an early age and gave us a human reproduction lecture. Like a biology class, with books and pictures. So by the time we were 10 we knew how babies were made in a clinical sense. My parents wanted at least one of us to be doctors and that was a bit of a head start.

[applehead]

Did you see the video with the pancakes? My sister wouldn't eat pancakes for years after that.

nooo. but don't share.

[nonamerasian]

make it required for graduation, with exams
finals and stuff.

It was required in my school unless a student had a religious excuse to get out of class.

How much do you know about your genitalia and reproductive system? In function, medical terms for parts, and signs of illness and health?

Learning that stuff was the best benefit of middle school health classes for me.

I knew the reproductive system. And mainly because of my sister's college med books, I knew diseases.

And I knew the penis well.

Without studying I did great on diagraming the thing. When the teacher would mention the Cowper’s glands or anything cock related during class, I had no question about where she was talking about.

But the female anatomy was a whole different question. On our test on that, I labeled the entire vulva as the vagina and the vagina as the vulva. I couldn't find "big lips" or "little lips" in the word box we were given. And I had no clue what that dot in the pic between the clit and the and vagina (then labeled vulva) was. But upon pondering I finally realized that it is possible to piss while wearing a tampon. :redface:

So, I have health class to thank for teaching me the female anatomy and the proper words for everything. I don't think anyone else taught me that stuff.

[Irezumi Kiss]

My first real sex ed intro was the classic children's book "Where Do I Come From." Also rounded out by illustrated medical science encyclopedias, the "dirty" parts in books and movies and the various adult magazines hidden underneath mattresses and such by the elder family menfolk.

My school was Catholic and the sex ed class (there was another name for it and I forget what they called it) was only good enough for its basic purpose and ideal of function...of course explaining things with a Catholic bent...but beyond that, it really was a waste of time for me, at least. More time was spent with your character either colliding or interacting with the characters of the stupid knuckleheads who you went to school with instead of any real learning about shit. Maybe it's different in some ways now, but I didn't find being stuck inside a classroom full of other teens to be beneficial to learning serious stuff about "sex."

Not sure about what is the "right" way to learn about sex since it is (or becomes) something different to everyone, but surely the "wrong" way would be not teaching at all, no matter how early of an age it is to be taught.

[tapestrybabe]

i feel sex ed is VERy important...
when it comes to especially in the lives of adoptees...
whether you learn about it thru
your adoptive parents or school...

like often times...
at a young age,
adoptees are told that we were chosen....
and we were a gift...
or some explanation like that...

and i just think its important to be truthful and open...
to young adoptee kids
when it comes to talking about--
where we actually came from...
to give a sense of semblence...
to make the person feel a part
of this universe, like everyone else...

[John0101]

I had sex ed in 6th and 8th grade and it was awesome. People crack jokes and made fun of penises and vaginas. I'm sure people were still having unsafe sex but never the less its something that I think should be taught even at an earlier age.

I remember one day back in 8th grade I looked down when I was taking a piss and I noticed hair around my penis and I got really scared and I thought I was abnormal. Then having learned that men were suppose to have pubic hair from sex ed I was totally relieved.

[hooligan]

Study finds abstinence programs haven't influenced TX teens
By The Associated Press
(01/31/05 - DALLAS, TX) — Abstinence-only programs like those promoted by the Bush administration don't seem to be working on teenagers in the president's home state, according to a state-sponsored study by Texas A&M University researchers.The ongoing study, the first evaluation of the abstinence programs across the state, found that students in almost all high school grades were more sexually active after undergoing abstinence education.

Researchers don't believe the programs encouraged teenagers to have sex, only that the abstinence messages did not interfere with customary trends among adolescents.

"We didn't find what many would like for us to find," said A&M researcher Buzz Pruitt, who met with state health authorities last week to discuss the data.

Pruitt cautioned against drawing overarching conclusions from the study, which is incomplete and does have flaws. For example, the study lacks a comparison group, so researchers can't say whether the teenagers would have shown an even greater increase in sexual activity had they not had abstinence education.

But scientists welcome Texas' contribution to a field lacking in solid data. The federal government will spend $131 million this year on various abstinence-only education programs -- $30 million more than was spent in 2004. But many public health experts are concerned that no one really knows what the government is buying.

"We're using a bunch of programs, and we don't know what their effectiveness is," said Mike Young of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Young and his colleagues have developed a curriculum called Sex Can Wait, which is one of the few abstinence programs that has documented at least a short-term influence on teenage behavior.

Among the findings in the Texas study: About 23 percent of the ninth-grade girls in the study already had sexual intercourse before they received any abstinence education, a figure below the national average.

After taking an abstinence course, the number among those same girls rose to 28 percent, a level closer to that of their peers across the state.

Among ninth-grade boys, the percentage who reported sexual intercourse before and after abstinence education remained relatively unchanged. In 10th grade, the percentage of boys who had ever had sexual intercourse jumped from 24 percent to 39 percent after participating in an abstinence program.

Still, public health experts say these and other studies may eventually help fashion abstinence-only approaches that can make a difference. Texas joins about a dozen other states that have evaluated their abstinence education programs.

The A&M study's results are based on a 10-page questionnaire filled out anonymously by junior high and high school students. The study examined five programs in more than two dozen schools.

To be funded as abstinence education, programs cannot provide instruction in birth control, outside "factual information about contraceptive methods, such as the failure rates that are associated with the different methods," according to documents from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Among other things, the law also dictates that an abstinence program must have "as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity."

The federal government is paying $4.5 million per year for a large study of several abstinence programs. Interim data that already was supposed to have been released remains unpublished.

The final report will be out by 2006, said Harry Wilson, associate commissioner of the Family and Youth Services Bureau.

Lacking objective information about a program's effectiveness, Wilson said, the government looks at other barometers, such as community needs, the educators' experience and ties to the community.

"You do the best you can with what you know," he said.

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

abstinence doesn't seem to stop youth from having sex. i believe that sex ed should be more about knowledge. you're not going to stop people from having sex or making that choice, but you can arm them with good knowledge that they can take with them when they become sexually active.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/state/013105_APstate_abstinence.html

[Arex]

I think sex ed is absolutely necessary. Like hooligan said, there's probably not much you can do to stop kids from having sex, but at least you can make sure they're well informed and hopefully protected.

I had my first sex ed course in the 5th grade. I don't remember much, but I knew it at least taught us the basics and warned us about the "changes" we could expect to our bodies in the upcoming years. One of my more informed friends thought it would be funny to ask the instructor what a french tickler was. Thank goodness for that sex ed session, though, because then I knew exactly what I needed to do when I paid for my first encounter with the local crack ho the summer before I started the sixth grade. Just kidding!!! But I do think it was good to lay the basic foundation before we reached adolescence when the number one thing on our minds were people of the opposite sex and before we decided we didn't need to listen to anything our teachers told us since we were smarter than them.

One thing that I think was lacking from our sex ed were sufficient graphic pictures of nasty STDs that you can contract if you don't play it safe enough. My girlfriend took an HIV educator training class for work and they provided her with a sheet of photos of various STDs in their later stages. Nasty stuff. And every sex ed class needs to hand out stills from that Nova special, the Miracle of Life, taken at the precise moment that you see the baby's head popping out of the woman's cooch. If that's not enough to get a kid to wear a rubber, I don't know what is.

RX

[tapestrybabe]

i babysit this chinese 9 year old girl...
whose in 4th grade...
and even at that age...
the parents have started discussing
with her about sex and how babies
are made and born and stuff...
i know, i've seen childrens books of hers...
that just discuss the basics-
the body parts, the reproductive system
and what not..
i think its a good thing...
to start really early...

[moJo]

i babysit this chinese 9 year old girl...
whose in 4th grade...
and even at that age...
the parents have started discussing
with her about sex and how babies
are made and born and stuff...
i know, i've seen childrens books of hers...
that just discuss the basics-
the body parts, the reproductive system
and what not..
i think its a good thing...
to start really early...
you just reminded me! my cousin, who is now an RN, was the first person to talk to me about sex ed when i was about 8. she was like a big sis to me. at the time, she was probably 19 or 20. she took out her anatomy books and some other science textbooks, and she tried to explain the reproduction system and stuff, but i was too fixated on the fact that people donated their bodies for science (which is how their pictures got taken for the textbooks).

[DragonKnight]

you just reminded me! my cousin, who is now an RN, was the first person to talk to me about sex ed when i was about 8. she was like a big sis to me. at the time, she was probably 19 or 20. she took out her anatomy books and some other science textbooks, and she tried to explain the reproduction system and stuff, but i was too fixated on the fact that people donated their bodies for science (which is how their pictures got taken for the textbooks).
Jo's cousin: ...and this is where babies come out of.
Lil Jo: Ewwww!!!! O_o

[sOKaLiBoY]

sex ed was no longer a requirement when i was in high school. i'll tell you when i learned....the internet!

[moJo]

sex ed was no longer a requirement when i was in high school. i'll tell you when i learned....the internet!
you didn't have Health Ed during your sophomore year? I thought that was a requirement for CA high school students. Half the school year for Health Ed, the other half devoted to Drivers Ed. Or the fast track method - summer school took care of both in one summer.

[sOKaLiBoY]

you didn't have Health Ed during your sophomore year? I thought that was a requirement for CA high school students. Half the school year for Health Ed, the other half devoted to Drivers Ed. Or the fast track method - summer school took care of both in one summer.

Drivers ed was removed because it was useless IMO. Wasn't even an option for us to take. We had health class for a semester but didn't go into anything about sex. Maybe it would have been different if i did take health during the school year and not during summer school.

[nola]

We had health ed and driver's ed too. Back in my time we didn't even have sex ed! But whatever they're doing now SOUNDS LAME!

[sOKaLiBoY]

We had health ed and driver's ed too. Back in my time we didn't even have sex ed! But whatever they're doing now SOUNDS LAME!

yea. you are required to take health and life skills in high school now. i took them the summer before 10th grade.


http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/lausd/offices/senior_high_programs/gr03.html

[AliBabaIncorporated]

No sex ed in either my middle school (California) or high school (Massachusetts).

I agree with Arex, sex ed would be better to be done early. Once you get to high school, it's stupid. I can't imagine anyone's listening except out of prurient interest (read: horny guys) or to use it forum for showing off sexual experience/knowledge. Also, it just makes even more obvious the divide between those who already got laid, those with a chance of getting laid before graduation, and those who are gonna be playing with Rosie Palmer on prom night.

Of course, there's no hope of sex ed actually being done early because parents would consider it inappropriate.

[nola]

yea. you are required to take health and life skills in high school now. i took them the summer before 10th grade. http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/lausd/offices/senior_high_programs/gr03.html
What's Life Skills class?

[Arex]

Of course, there's no hope of sex ed actually being done early because parents would consider it inappropriate.I guess it all depends on the parent. Before they provided sex ed to my class in the 5th grade, they sent us all home with forms where our parents had the option of either opting the kids in or out of sex ed. My mom opted me in. Of course, this is the same mom that I heard whispering insistently to my dad, "tell him to use PROTECTION!" when I called home in the 10th grade to see if I could stay over at my girlfriend's house. Even though they let me stay there, no hanky panky ever took place, which is anecdotal evidence that safe sex education doesn't cause kids to have sex.

RX

[applehead]

I guess it all depends on the parent. Before they provided sex ed to my class in the 5th grade, they sent us all home with forms where our parents had the option of either opting the kids in or out of sex ed. My mom opted me in. Of course, this is the same mom that I heard whispering insistently to my dad, "tell him to use PROTECTION!" when I called home in the 10th grade to see if I could stay over at my girlfriend's house. Even though they let me stay there, no hanky panky ever took place, which is anecdotal evidence that safe sex education doesn't cause kids to have sex.

RX

if anything i feel like the safe sex education
that i learned from school/on my own/from friends
prevented me from having sex at an early
age. i mean, i learned all the things that can
go wrong even while engaging in safe sex.

[asvenus]

^^totally agree, i feel that the more informed you are the less likely you even want to engage in the thing!!

i went to a convent school with nuns..so we didnt have what you might call 'sex ed'..we had instead what you might call..'the evilll things that sinners do and the evilll diseases they do get struck down with for doing these things'!! it was funny really,
luckily (or not) growing up with a mother who decided it was a good idea to thrust the nearest biology book, graphically depicting reproproductive systems and copulation in all its garish glory as soon as i could form the words 'where do i come from?' was a remedy to that...
it all led me to become someone who was petrified of sex and disease and a complete hypochondriact..when i was 7 i thought i had AIDS..it was in fact excema (dont ask!!)

i think children as young as 5 should learn about their bodies and what can/will happen, it should be done in an open way without shame and fear. and they should learn the practical and emotional side of things in a guilt and value free environment, this will probably never happen but its how i hope to teach my children!!

[kpih]

I think I mentioned in another threat about studies done on sexual education and STD rate. In states with a higher expenditure on sex ed STD infection among teens are substantially lower. Public health issue...

[nola]

Yay! Thank you, professor!

[nola]

Crib Sheet: Sex Ed
Federally funded abstinence-only programs are failing us, but our government keeps pumping money into them. Find out why.

By Naina Dhingra, Advocates for Youth
Monday, July 11, 2005

On July 12, Campus Progress hosted a screening of The Education of Shelby Knox, a documentary, recently aired on PBS, about a Baptist teenager from Lubbock, Texas, who fights for comprehensive sexual education in her hometown, which has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease in the state. The film premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and spotlights the problems with abstinence-only education.

A gaggle of the most esteemed scientific institutions in the land, including the American Medical Association, the National Institutes of Health, and the Office of National AIDS Policy, have all issued scientific reports in support of comprehensive sexuality education – education that includes information about both abstinence and contraception.

Despite the advice of trained experts, Congress has chosen to ignore reality, allocating nearly half a billion dollars since the fall of 1996 to fund unproven abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that exclude information about condoms and contraceptives for the prevention of teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). And throughout his administration, President Bush has prioritized abstinence education and dramatically increased funding for these types of programs. In his 2006 budget, President Bush proposed pumping an additional $39 million into abstinence-only programs while cutting things like Medicaid and financial aid programs. By comparison, in 1999 these types of programs received no funding.

Recently, Rep. Henry A. Waxman released a report showing that many federally funded abstinence-only education programs use curricula that distort information about the effectiveness of contraceptives, misrepresent the risks of abortion, blur religion and science, treat stereotypes about girls and boys as scientific fact, and contain basic scientific errors. Some of these false gems include: pregnancy can result from touching another person’s genitals, women who have abortions are more prone to suicide and sterility, or half of gay male teenagers in the U.S. have tested positive for HIV. Click here to read the full report prepared by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform. Also, check out Campus Progress’ top 7 favorite quotes from abstinence-only curricula here.

What’s wrong with federal abstinence-only-until marriage requirements?

1. Federally mandated abstinence-only-until-marriage education jeopardizes the health and lives of young people by denying them information that can prevent unintended pregnancy and infection with STDs, including HIV.

Young people need to know how to avoid the potential negative consequences of sex. Research shows that teenagers who receive contraceptive education in the same year that they choose to become sexually active are about 70% more likely to use contraceptive methods (including condoms) and more than twice as likely to use oral contraceptives as those not exposed to contraceptive education. That is why the National Institutes of Health recommends that, although sexual abstinence is a desirable objective, programs must include instruction in safe sex behavior, including condom use.

2. Federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage education too often provides young people with medically inaccurate information.

Abstinence-only-until-marriage education provides no information about contraception and condoms other than failure rates – which are often reported incorrectly. These curricula encourage young people to believe that condoms and modern methods of contraception are far less effective than they are. (One frequently used curriculum states that 14% of women using condoms for birth control will become pregnant in a year; most statistics on the subject are closer to 2%.) In asserting that condoms are ineffective, abstinence-only-until-marriage education usually relies on studies that either pre-date today’s highly effective latex condoms or that are not scientific in their research and analysis and, thus, are not published in peer-reviewed journals. These programs also require teachers to instruct students that sexual activity outside of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.

3. Proponents of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs assume that, if young people do not learn about contraception, they will not have sex.

Throughout human history, people have had sex. (Actually that’s pretty much the predicate for human history.) And now, according to the CDC, 61% of high school students will have sex before they graduate. We need to provide sexual health education that deals with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. Often, people had to rely on contraceptive methods that were not very effective in the prevention of unwanted pregnancy because highly effective methods were not available. Today, these methods are available to help people avoid unintended pregnancy and protect themselves from STDs – if they know about them. The fact that some U.S. teens report oral and/or anal sex while considering themselves ‘virgins’ underscores the fact that not having information does not prevent young people from having sex. It may, though, prevent them from making healthy choices.

What is comprehensive sexuality education?

Comprehensive sexuality education rests upon certain core values including:


Every individual has dignity and self-worth.

Sexual relationships should never be coercive or exploitative.

All sexual decisions have effects and consequences.

Every person has the right and the obligation to make responsible sexual choices.


Comprehensive sexuality education encourages young people to complement these values with the values of their parents, society, and culture and to define and clarify the values by which they can live fulfilling, satisfying lives. It includes a wide variety of sexuality related topics, such as human development, relationships, interpersonal skills, sexual expression, sexual health, and society and culture. Additionally, it provides accurate, factual and medically accurate information on contraception, abortion, and STDs. Comprehensive sexuality education does not supplant family values; rather it provides young people with the tools to integrate these values into their lives and decision-making.

What can I do?

In February 2005, Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced the Responsible Education About Life Act—the REAL Act, H.R. 768 and S. 368. This important bill will provide funding to states for medically accurate, age appropriate, comprehensive sex education in the schools—education that includes information about both abstinence and contraception, from both a values and public health perspective. The REAL Act also provides for enhancing parent-child communication, developing decision-making and negotiation skills and providing education from a public health approach. Urge your Representative and Senators to co-sponsor this important bill.

For more information on how the Far Right and President Bush are censoring life-saving information from young people check out these resources:

The Education of Shelby Knox

Five Years of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education: Assessing the Impact

Bush’s Sex Fantasy

Naina Dhingra, 23, is the Director of Public Policy for Advocates for Youth. She can be reached at naina@advocatesforyouth.org.

[moser]

Dang, we had sex ed in middle school, and parents could opt out of the class by signing some form and have the kid bring it back to the school. My parents were the only ones who signed the form, but I never turned it in.

So yeah, I learned via sex ed classes, peers, and reading around.

[Anaestacia]

Hmm. I was a curious kid.. by the time they got to sex ed in late elementary I think I knew most of it through reading except for what condoms and all the other goodies looked like. I was also a really early bloomer so there was all the sex talk earlier on.