Opinion: Why It’s Important to Teach Sex Ed Through a Pleasure Perspective
Pleasure is glaringly absent from sex education curricula around the country. Educators should encourage healthy dialogues around sexual pleasure, not teach abstinence and stunt children’s sexual development.
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by Aarna Dixit
This story was originally published on New York University’s Washington Square News.
Sex education is crucial to building healthy relationships and social interactions, but our society often fails to provide comprehensive sex education. Nineteen states in the United States educate using abstinence-only curricula, and as such practically ignore sex. It is time for society to realize that consensual, healthy sex is an important, relevant aspect of human interactions and that there’s nothing taboo about it.
Sex education must start at a young age so that youth can be informed about boundaries and healthy sexual relationships. Teaching abstinence and limiting conversations about sex doesn’t change the fact that most young adults engage in sexual activities. Rather than treating sex as a forbidden act, we should be educating children so that they have the tools they need to form healthy sexual relationships.
A purely abstinence-based sex ed curriculum is simply not productive. Abstinence can be a valid option for many people, but not everyone. It shouldn’t be portrayed as the only option. When sex ed is taught from an abstinence perspective, there are no conversations about consent, boundaries or protection, which leaves young people uninformed and unable to have safe sex. Most of us will probably engage in sexual activity at some point in our lives, so it’s strange that our society stigmatizes around sex and refuses to talk positively about sex.
Read the rest of the story at Washington Square News.