We all find out eventually about the sex.
Some kids aren’t actually told the truth about where babies come from. Kids are told “the stork brought you here!”, others say that “babies are made when you kiss!”-- I even told my sister that you can get pregnant from a pumpkin seed (because pumpkin seeds contain plants that grow babies).
The first time I saw a pregnant woman, I was in awe. I had never seen a person with a stomach so big. Like any curious little kid, I had to ask my mom, what’s wrong with that lady’s stomach? My mom was straightforward and let me in on the secret -- after a woman has sex, they can become pregnant with a baby, which then grows in their uterus. At first, I was a little confused about the logistics, how does this happen? When does this happen? The majority of my knowledge was based on assumptions and half-truths that I learned from my parents.
When puberty hit, anything mentioned about sex and reproduction was insanely hilarious because it made everyone feel awkward. That period of time, first entering middle school, most people’s bodies begin to change. Some come earlier, and some much later, and at the same time, sex ed talks began. We only learned about puberty. What happened to reproduction? This generation has access to the internet and a plethora of information pertaining to virtually everything, so that’s how we learn the bulk of what we know. When they finally began to talk about reproduction in health, sex was mainly science. Now we knew the technicalities, but there was a serious disconnect between what we perceived as sex and what it really is. With the focus on contraceptives and STI’s (Sexually Transmitted Infections), sex was made out to be dangerous for physical reasons.
“When a man and a woman love each other very much…”
Every time I hear this phrase, I imagine parents giving their kids “the talk”. Here’s what my school sex education was missing: the connection with relationships and emotions. This single phrase brings into play multiple implications: sex must be when two people love each other, sex must be heterosexual, and sex will always create babies. From the get-go, children are taught a strict view of sex: they are not told that sex is often done for pleasure, they are not told that sex can be done when people don’t love each other, they are not told that sex doesn’t have to be heterosexual, and most of all, they are not told that sex is normal!

Now, what do I mean by “normal”? I’m not saying that little kids should run around having sex like bunnies; kids should be educated on sex. Positively educated on sex. Kids need to be taught that sex is completely natural: almost everyone and everything performs sexual reproduction, and that’s how (basically) everyone on this Earth was created. Alice Dreger, an author for Pacific Standard magazine, taught her son almost everything about sexual reproduction. From all of the sex organs to even menstruation, her son became comfortable talking and discussing sex through a positive attitude. Dreger’s son doesn’t distinguish talk about sex as any different than speaking about what he had last night for dinner. Of course his comfort and openness when discussing sex comes as a surprise to many children and even more to adults, but his understanding of sex helps his peers see the truth about sex, not all the technicalities, nor the “just say no” concept that some school curriculums call for. If you treat sex as a taboo topic, then others will see it as taboo as well. But if you speak about sex openly -- without reservation or hesitation-- people will ostensibly mirror your attitude.

Sex education in America stemmed from the 1920’s, during the age of prohibition. Promiscuity was increasing and rebellion was in the air, but STD’s were also running rampant. In order to stop the rampage of the STDs, syphilis and gonorrhea, there was a push for sex education. Around 20-40% of American schools taught sex education, but it focused on abstinence and the evils of masturbation.

The following decades, there was an expansion in sex education. The 30’s consisted of the US Office of Education training teachers and distributing materials.In the 40’s and 50’s, human sexuality moved into college and university campuses. By 1965, Mary Calderone (physician at Planned Parenthood) founded the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), which challenged the American Social Hygiene Association (the dominator of sex ed at the time). During the 60’s and 70’s, the sexual revolution overtook the US and sex ed made its way into politics. Ironically, this period was the most resistance to sex ed because organizations like the Christian Crusade attacked SIECUS and sex ed for promoting promiscuity and moral depravity. Eventually, rumor spread and religious conservatives would attack sex ed to bolster their influence and cause uproar among parents who then began to protest against sex ed.

In the 1980’s, the AIDS and HIV pandemic broke out and sex ed found strength. Unfortunately, the new curriculum of sex ed was abstinence. The 1996 Welfare Reform Act provided provisions for abstinence education (thanks to religious conservatives, once again), while millions of dollars were allocated to abstinence education. Of course abstinence education is an effective method of preventing people from having sex, seeing how prohibition was also entirely successful.
Nowadays, there have been many stories of sex ed where the curriculum is negative. Seeing that the origin of sex education was based on the spread of disease, no wonder why they discourage having sex. But that’s not the case now. With the availability of contraceptives and treatments, we should be taught about safe sex with protection from diseases and protection from conception.
Several approaches to sex education have been take, the abstinence, abstinence “but”, and comprehensive education. Abstinence teaches that the only way to be safe and prevent pregnancy is to never have sex. Abstinence “but” teaches that abstinence is the only way to 100% guarantee safety from STI’s and unplanned pregnancies, “but” if the individual is having sex, contraceptives are introduced. Comprehensive education holds the same principles as abstinence “but”, and also combines relationships, values and morals. Comprehensive education is the more positive method of sex education, providing accurate and transparent information and allowing for individuals to uphold their own religious values while making informed decisions on how to proceed with their sexual lives.

We can begin with morality. We have (mostly) moved beyond savage behaviors. We are not a pack of animals (like bonobos who have orgies to solve problems). Sex has questionable morals -- but why? The first reason is because sex is strongly interconnected with hormones and emotions. Most prominently love, and lust, but also anger and hatred. It’s true that when two people are in a loving relationship, they will often have sex, but when two people lust each other, they often also have sex. Love and lust: the two act dependently. Without lust, a relationship would only be a friendship; sexual attraction is a main factor in a partnership. Although some believe that romance can exist independent of lust, romantic lust develops as a result of romantic feelings. Where lust may have not been to initial factor in the beginning of a relationship, lust buds after the person’s feelings mature. Almost like an acquired taste. From the taste, who says dark chocolate is delicious? But after a while, a person comes to appreciate and enjoy bitter tasting chocolate, to recognize the nuanced flavors and pungencies, and anything but dark chocolate suddenly tastes too sweet.
There is an unspoken rule that consensual sex outside of a relationship violates common morals, and even sex outside of marriage violates religious codes especially. In religion, sex is seen as the most holy actions that any person could perform. It’s viewed as a way to imitate God--restrictions are imposed in order to preserve the sanctity of sex. Many Abrahamic religious dicate that sex before marriage is unheard of (or sex with an unmarried virgin), adultery is strictly prohibited and monogamy is emphasized. Interestingly enough, religious regulations stemmed from an attempt at sorting moral codes. Few religious leaders interpret Abrahamic principles differently; other religions are more open to different sexual practices, but because American society is dominated by Abrahamic religions, the tenets that we uphold tend to mirror the teachings of the bible. But where did we go wrong? We let religion shove us into the corner and tell us that sex is taboo, that sex is evil. We let religion shame us.
In a 2012 TED talk, Alyssa Royse speaks about our degree of transparency, or rather degree of opaqueness that our society has employed in the past. She makes an important distinction between shame and guilt. Guilt is self-imposed, while shame is imposed by societal influences. What we feel when we involve in sexuality is shame. Our bodies know that it’s natural, but our society dictates that nature is wrong. In order to lift the shame, we need to be open and non-judgemental of people’s sexualities.

Negative emotions like hatred and anger pose dangerous threats. From these emotions, rape and violence begin. If a person is lustful, but unable to satisfy their needs adequately, they may turn to rape. Rape is often the result of frustration and infuriation over sexual needs remaining unfulfilled or feelings of dejection from a relationship. Rape is partially due to misconstrued messages delivered by the media and pornography industry: people aren’t having manic sex, it’s not just about the pleasure. It’s not just those hormones being pumped through your veins. Sex and sexuality are multi-level ideas that we destruct into simple concepts in order to understand it better.
So why are sex crimes particularly heinous? Sex is not only connected with relationships and emotions, but with personal liberties. According to the principles of Enlightenment philosophers like John Locke, we are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Personal liberty and safety is compromised when a victim is raped. They are violated in the most fundamental principles of their existence: “The assault humiliates, dominates, degrades, overpowers, and violates a person through the most vulnerable dimension fo (sic.) the self, the sexual self” (Fortune). Rape takes a person’s free will and imprisons it, chains it, executes it. The victim is at the mercy of their aggressor, unable to fight back and unable to fight the mounting guilt and shame boiling within themselves. Rape is like none other, it doesn’t (always) execute a person, but it executes a person’s psyche, it molests people’s emotions, it destroys any security and safety that a person holds. Rape is a savage beast: it is our incarnation of our primordial, feral brute.
How can we prevent rape without teaching negative sex education? First of all, this situation isn’t all about sex, it’s about respect and emotions. If a person feels so desperate that they need to force another into submission and rape them, then they are selfish, have poor self-control and are most importantly, insecure. Usually the offender knows what they’re doing wrong and they don’t care. Often, rapists are created because they feel socially excluded and they need control. We need to find a way to prevent people from feeling this way. Not only potential rapists, but everyone must be educated against rape. Everyone must uphold a mutual respect for one another, respect for feelings, for desires, and especially for sexuality. What do we tell people to prevent rape? “Don’t do it” isn’t going to cut it. But how can we teach people to feel accepted? We need to spread our influence; we need to let our friends know that we accept who they are. We need to let our community know that we will not discriminate them for their preferences. Interestingly enough, the range of rapists that were unknown to the victim was from 9%-33%. The majority of rapings are done by people that the victim knows. By having an accommodating community and letting everyone know that they’re not alone, maybe rapes will occur less often.
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With understanding and acceptance, we need to educate people on sex. It’s our method of reproduction, our way to feel pleasure, our way to express love to another. Why do we gravitate toward chasity? To prevent disease and rape and to honor our religious codes. Is it necessary? No. We can teach that sex doesn’t have to be dangerous, and there’s no physical repercussions as long as it’s safe. We can acclimate people to the uncharted land of non-judgmentalism and acceptance. In order to move ourselves toward comfort in sexuality, we need help people comprehend the dynamics of having sex, from the risks to the benefits. Sex is not a simple topic and our society won’t accept our shift away from “don’t ask don’t tell” secrecy easily, but with more familiarity, we can stop shaming people who are comfortable with their sexuality.