Seventh grade too late to start serious sex education

In kindergarten, my son, Sawyer, learned the proper names for body parts, that belly buttons were navels, boys had penises and girls had vulvas.

He learned that no one should touch his private areas (ones covered by his swimsuit). If someone did, he should tell an adult.

Over the next few years, his teachers talked about hygiene, self-esteem, boundaries, bullying and puberty.

In fourth grade, they talked about sexual intercourse, the reproductive cycle, about how babies were made. (By then, Sawyer already knew. A boy on the playground told him how he thought it was done. I had to straighten that out.)

As Sawyer got older, he learned about birth control, sexually transmitted illnesses, sexual orientation, gender roles, consent and communication, and how to build respectful relationships.

Children learn about sexual health over time. It doesn’t happen all at once.

Arizona law does not require schools to teach sex education, though it should. Now Sen. Sylvia Allen wants to ban sex education before seventh grade.

“Young children are not ready to be sexually active,“she told The Arizona Republic’s reporter Lily Altavena.

Sex education doesn’t make children sexually active. It makes them smart.

One in five middle-schoolers report receiving sexually explicit text messages. In 2017 in Arizona, 65 girls ages 10 to 14 gave birth.

“Kids know — or think they know — and that’s part of the problem,” my cousin Theresa said. A health teacher, she taught sex education to middleschoolers for 29 years.

The kids didn’t know they could get STIs from oral sex, or get pregnant before menstruating. They didn’t understand how birth control works or that it is the responsibility of both genders. They didn’t know girls don’t menstruate and urinate through the same opening, and that boys can get breast cancer.

Theresa had every student’s undivided attention every time. They were hungry for information.

Seventh grade is too late to start.