Wise TV-Series. What about Sex Education?

I just finished watching Sex Education, season 3, on Netflix today. It left me fully resolute on the fact that the kids of the “sex school” had got it completely right. Things do not go well when we preach, or worse force, abstinence. The same can be said with promoting ignorance in fear of “too much progression”, avidly trying to maintain traditions and the status quo.

Kids think about sex, and some kids have sex. This is not to say that educational systems shall now start and promoting sexual activity to teenagers and young adults. However, some kids have sex, and some kids have other sexual feelings too. Some kids have hetero feelings, some have gay feelings, some have feelings I have yet to understand, and all of these are valid. So, in light of all of this feeling feelings, shouldn’t education systems be opened and transparent with their pupils? Allowing them communication, expression, and promoting knowledge, as well as safety?

Insinuating that everything about sex and sexual desire is evil and should be avoided has not just obvious psychological repercussions, but it is also unfounded. High school abstinence-only sexual education programmes are much more harmful.

These programmes withhold important sexual health information and provide medically incorrect content, endangering young people's sexual development.

Of course, abstinence is the most effective way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STIs). You don't receive the undesired repercussions if you don't have sex. But how probable is it that we can persuade young people who are influenced by raging hormones and bodily changes to avoid (consensual) sexual relationships?

Many teenagers who desire to practise abstinence do not, and when they do have intercourse, they typically do not use condoms or other forms of contraception. Why? Perhaps because no one instructed them on how to do it. Especially when PornHub is their sole sex-related resource.

Furthermore, according to scientific evidence accumulated over the last 20 years, programmes like these are ineffective in preventing pregnancy or STIs, nor do they have a positive impact on age at first sexual intercourse, the number of sexual partners, or other behaviours. Where this type of conservatism fails, a broad and flexible education may succeed.

What is the significance of all of this?

For our own growth, the development of our children, and a more equitable future And, sure, equality is frequently paved by unearthing buried areas of our past. Especially when they should never have been ignored or relegated to the margins.

I'm sure it would have benefited me. I know it will assist future generations to understand that sex is not a filthy word and that being homosexual is not a "new fad." Transparency and listening to younger generations, I am confident, may save lives.

That brings me to another point of historical erasure in the classroom.

Schools and history texts are notorious for their penchant for erasing. Whitewashing, queer erasure, and an emphasis on men's achievements This cannot be right.

LGBT/Queer erasure is a heteronormative cultural tendency in which queer groups are deliberately or unwittingly erased from history, or their importance is rejected or minimised. Gay historian Gregory Rosenthal defines this erasure as the purposeful suppression of Queer history from public view through urban architecture and construction, culminating in the "displacement of queer peoples from public view." They've attempted to keep us concealed, much like the tubes and canals that our faeces go through. They are, nevertheless, all around us. Okay, I'll stop now. But...I'll offer some further readings.

Read these if you wish:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstinence-only_sex_education

https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/abstinence-only-education-failure

https://comicsyouth.co.uk/youthtakeover/2020/7/1/junior-activism-7-queer-erasure-in-history

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0306422020917088

I hope you have found this illuminating. For a more amusing and entertaining view on the topic, don't miss Sex Education on Netflix.