Comprehensive Sex Education: Good or Bad?

Sexual education has been disputed about for years in public schooling. people argue about all of it being taught to the students, different ways of teaching it, and even if the students should hear about it at all. The thing is, students have to know about these things. Many people say that sex should only be taught as an after marriage-only item, but a lot of students are already sexually active, and without guidance, could screw up their lives. What should happen is that all the students should be split up into the groups of people that have had sex and that haven't, teach the ones that haven't abstinence with minor focus on the safer sex practices, while teaching the students that have had sex the safer practices while still telling them about the advantages abstinence will bring if they begin it now.

Many students have yet to become sexually active and that's understandable. With these students we should still give the abstinence talks to and help them understand as much as possible. We should also give them information on safer sex, but still stress the idea of abstinence. These students still have a chance to keep their virginity and that should be promoted as much as possible. That is the only way to remain completely safe from all STD's and pregnancy.

There are, however, students out there that have done the act. With these students, we must show different ways of contraception and still tell them about abstinence as the safest of them. Not many will care about the idea of stopping their sex lives and will continue on their way, but you can arm them with as much information as possible. It has been proven that students with a formal sex education are far more likely to put off having sex. According to Thomson Reuters, founder of the sex educationinstitute, "They found teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71% less likely to have intercourse before age fifteen, while girls who had sex education were fifty-nine percent less likely to have sex before age fifteen." He continues to say that, "Sex education also increased the likelihood that teen boys would use contraceptives the first time they had sex, according to the study by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health."

Many people still dispute over whether or not we should teach it at all or just as an after-marriage-only sort of thing. Not telling the students anything about sex is one of the most dangerous things to do in the world of sex education. They would have no idea what to expect. They would walk blindly into a world that is already filled with mass chaos and confusion. Students have heard about sex their whole lives, and mainly from their friend, which aren't always the most reliable of sources. Without proper education, they are more likely to have sex, and not use any form of protection because their friends have mislead them in the world of sex.

Another form of sex education going around is the idea of an after-marriage-only strategy. When Leslee Unruh, clinical sex expert and psychologist, talks to young people, she actually brings in a bag of rubber snakes with names of different STD's such as: Herbie Herpes, Wally Wart, Hester Hepatitis, Albert AIDS, and so on. She uses the snakes to teach young people about the risks of having sex before marriage. What she doesn't tell kids are ways to protect yourself if you don't listen to the lesson on abstinence. Without the education on how to protect themselves, they will not care about the fun snake lesson and continue on their journey through their jaded forest. Steve Sternberg, of the center of disease prevention, writes, "Mathematic reports say there's little, if any, evidence showing that abstinence only programs have reduced teen pregnancy or the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases." He also says that, "public health experts also question the strings the white house has attached to abstinence-only funding. States that accept the money must teach that sex outside of marriage 'is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.' And teachers must assert that abstinence is the 'only certain way' to prevent pregnancy and STD's." According to a 2000 Kaiser Family Foundation survey of more than 4,000 educators, parents and teens, "Parents favor comprehensive sex education, with roughly eighty-five percent saying that they would like their children to learn about condoms, about other forms of contraception and about how to talk about them with their parents if they do choose to have sex."

As mentioned before, if we split the abstinent from the non-abstinent we could still have a chance at educating them properly. They've been visited by abstinent groups before, but what did that really teach them, sex is bad? What should happen, is that a class needs to be made that is completely devoted to sex education alone. This is the only way to make sure that the students all completely understand what has to be taught and also many students are going to think that the class is cool just because of the subject. Others can go on arguing about the right way to teach the population, but this seems to be one of them that gets the largest amount of progress out of the student populace.