It’s gone beyond just ‘the talk’
LET’S be clear from the get-go – we are long past the point of arguing about whether there should be sex education in schools.
Or at least we should be. Although UK teenage pregnancy rates have fallen, they are still among the highest in Europe. Have you checked out the high numbers of STIs in school leavers? LGBT hate crime is on the rise and don’t even get me started on the porn images our kids can now access online.
No, it’s a no-brainer that our kids must be equipped with the knowledge to navigate their way through growing up.
Except if you’re a member of certain parenting groups who are fighting to prevent sex education becoming a mandatory part of the curriculum.
They have mobilised in the wake of an announcement by the Government surrounding a package of proposed changes to sex education in schools.
New items on the agenda, as well as the banana and condom talk, will include sexting, domestic and honour-based abuse, trans issues and cyber safety. Meanwhile, the Welsh Government is also consulting on new sex education guidance.
Not a moment too soon. “Almost twenty years on from the last time guidance on sex education was updated, there is a lot to catch up on,” trills the education secretary, Damian Hinds.
I’ll say.
And yet we have a protest lobby urging MPs to offer parents the ability to withdraw children from sex education classes, arguing mums and dads have a ‘fundamental right’ to decide when their offspring have the birds and the bees talk
Oh, come on people, the birds and bees aren’t the half of it. If you feel able to talk about female genital mutilation as you cook the fish fingers then good on you. I’m not.
Do these people want a return to a cosy past when sex ed consisted of some dodgy anatomical drawings, a frankly laughable animated film and a flustered biology teacher?
If so they’re mad – it was flawed then and that was before the internet with its twisted take on porn and how women ‘should’ behave; its mixed messages about sex and love and respect. No social media in the 1980s with its potential for bullying on the basis of how you look or who you fancy.
Here in 2019 sex and relationships are more complex, more varied, more inter-connected with identity and mental health than ever. A chat about mummies and daddies and how they make babies just won’t cut it any more.
Of course parents should play a part in helping their kids understand their bodies. In an ideal world we’d all be equipped to have ‘the conversation’ with our offspring and answer any question they throw at us.
But this isn’t an ideal world and many adults simply aren’t comfortable chatting about sex, let alone the law on consent.
Which is where schools come in. They must fill that vacuum.
I understand why there is opposition to these sex topics being introduced.
But keeping crucial information away from the very people who need it most is a fast track to disaster.