Better sex ed means braver sex ed

Teens want better sex ed and who could blame them?

While covering the basic biology and possible consequences is information teens need, it’s really not the whole picture. Hell it’s not half of the picture.

Teenagers know that sex isn’t just about disembodied genitalia joining with potential disastrous results - disease or babies.

A recent survey shows they want to know more about healthy romantic relationships and how to tell if they’re ready to get physical with their boyfriends or girlfriends.

Sex always involves people in relationships, maybe not rock-solid, forever relationships but relationships none-the-less. I’ve known many teenagers who are as capable of healthy mature sexual relationships as most adults are.

As difficult as it can be, you have to treat them as sexual beings capable of rational relationship decisions. The hormones aren’t driving all the time.  

But teen sex is also often really complicated by past romantic issues, future uncertainty, peer pressure and even power dynamics.

Now that’s a hell of a lot harder to talk about than herpes, but it’s just as important.

The Toronto study also showed that sex health educators aren’t reaching teens from the Black, Asian, Muslim and Aboriginal communities and recommended more staff at clinics who represent both the youth and diverse communities they serve.

Here in Northumberland, we have a teen birth rate that’s consistently higher than the provincial average (17.6 mothers aged 15-19 per 1,000 teens in the county, while the provincial average was 12.5).

There is an impressive range of services in the county to support these young moms.

But if we really want to see the number decline to the Ontario average maybe we should be reorganizing our sexual health education to include local youth as the driving force in a new outreach program.

Comments

[Deb O'Connor]

It really is well past time North Americans abandoned their Puritan like attitudes towards sex, especially when it comes to younger people.

In Northumberland County some of us tried for years to get a publicly visible family planning clinic going to distribute contraceptives and provide education. Just like the place I visited in Vancouver in 1968 when I needed it! 1968!

We almost got one around 1990 but the plan was mysteriously dropped. Just who orchestrated its downfall is unknown, but I wonder how many children, now old enough to have babies themselves, were the result.

It's my understanding the Health Unit now has some clinics spread around the County, and I am very glad to hear that. If only they had been put in place all those years ago.

One thing I remember very well is that once I discovered sex at the age of 17, I wasn't about to go back to knitting as my father recommended. I know kids today aren't any different, and why should they be?

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