I don't remember my sex education lessons at school going into too much detail except that they were extremely stuffy and taught by embarrassed teachers to even more embarrassed pupils. The sexes were separated. The boys were told about getting erections and the girls periods where the teacher pulled out her trump card: a tampon she put into a glass of water where we were all subsequently mesmerised by its expanding shape.
Then I went to an all girls school and I don't really remember having any more 'life' lessons after that. My mum (a teacher) provided me with a book she had bought when I was a toddler (yes she is super organised) and kept hidden in the kitchen cupboard ever since until she felt the time was right to teach me about the birds and the bees. This book was bought in 1980s and given to me in 1995 so fashions had changed somewhat and sex was no longer described as "the man puts his baby making stick into the woman's baby making hole" (men also no longer had horned rimmed glasses and porn style moustaches...this book scared me for life).
Perhaps they thought that by arming us with the knowledge of seeing an expanding tampon placed in a glass of water at 11-years- old and being shown a dodgy out-of-touch 1970s sex education video where the women were in dire need of a Brazilian and had hairy armpits to rival Bigfoot's would make us horribly uncomfortable and leave us with the impending impression that sex was something only for adults.
Sadly it seems that not much has changed in the 15 years since I was subjected to said videos and expanding tampon demonstrations as teenagers are still being informed about sex in a terribly embarrassed hush-hush fashion. With the UK having the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe and a high rate of sexually transmitted infections amongst the young why have we not yet realised that we are getting it all terribly wrong and our current way of educating children is simply not working?
Young people learn about sex and relationships from a very early age. Some of the things they learn are incorrect and confusing. How many times have you read a magazine or watched television only to be inundated by images of glamorous, hedonistic sex. If this isn’t confusing to someone who has not had it all properly explained to them, I’m not quite sure what is.
If teachers and parents were more open with their children from an earlier age there wouldn't be the culture we have of a keeping a stiff upper lip and making everything secretive and therefore with the result that sex becomes as more of a rebellious act. Teenagers who are clearly educated about sex by their parents start sex later, are more are more likely to use contraception and less likely to have an unplanned pregnancy or catch a sexually transmitted infection.
As adults we know that there is more to sex than the wham-bam-thank-you-man five minutes of pleasure (though as a teenager this tends to be more thumbs and fingers than straight forward ecstasy). We understand that sex can bring emotional questions and problems and the act of sex is extended to before and after the actual act alone. Teenagers don’t understand this and so need to be taught more about the emotional side of sex rather than just the mechanics.
This year is the year the UK finally took notice of a problem and looked to a country with the lowest teenage pregnancy rate in Western Europe and the lowest rates of sexually transmitted diseases among young people; attributes the UK decided would be the basis of the perfect model to bring back to our shores.
Sex is everywhere in the Netherlands, yet the country has such low rates it’s a wonder how they manage to sustain these. Maybe it’s their old fashioned family values, perhaps it’s their straight talking or maybe it’s that there is still a stigma attached to having a child under the ages of 20 that puts teens off (benefits and housing are not given to teenage parents). Or maybe the answer is that children in the Netherlands have a higher level of self esteem and confident that means they do not seek these things from other sources.
Only time will tell whether or not these new ways of educating children about sex and relationships here will work. I just hope it is sooner rather than later as I plan on nursing a wine hangover in my 40s rather than a Grandchild!
Image via Lew57's Flickr