LGBT in Sex Ed

LegacyUser

Going un-regd for this.

A thought crossed my mind recently. I was thinking back to when I was in 6th class. That was the age where everyone in our school was taught Sex Ed. Now, at that time I had little or no idea what 'gay' meant, let alone that I myself was. It was just a word that people used to slag others off.

But my point is that no element of Sex ed included LGBT issues - not even a simple sentence saying 'Some men are attracted to men, and some women are attracted to other women, and this is completely normal.' I know society is moving forward and we're slowly moving out of the Stone Age as regards sexuality, but I can't help feeling that if it was explained at that age, people's attitudes would be a little different when they were older.

So what's your views on it? Did your Sex Ed include anything LGBT related, and nowadays is it included?

Sir Ophiuchus

You're totally right, mine didn't either. I think BelongTo did a survey including some questions about this a while ago: anyone know what happened to it?

rainbow kirby

I did my LC in a Catholic all-girls school in 2002. Nothing at all LGBT-related was ever mentioned in sex ed.

AndrewJD

I'm originally from Scotland, and we did the bulk of sex ed around 11/12ish (so this was around 2003) and there was no mention of homosexuality at this point. When a sort of follow up type thing came up at around 15 years old there was again no specific mention of anything other than heterosexuality. There wasn't really any religious context to either of the schools these courses were delivered in.

Mind you, I don't think it would've been any real comfort to me if they had, it's more the principle I care about now. Maybe not true for a lot of people though.

rainbowdrop

I went to a Catholic school in the UK, and our Sex Ed consisted of putting a condom on a cucumber and watching a video of 2 rabbits copulating!!

Didn't exactly prepare me for my future life of Sapphic lovin'.......:pac:

Asphyxia

I never actually thought about this before but OP you are dead right.

I really think there should be a small chat about it, I had my sex ed class when I was in 5th class and at the time I was having confused feelings. If they had a small discussion about it I think I would have felt great about myself instead of confused and worried when leaving... it took me until I was 13/14 to be alright with being bisexual but I really wish I had someone there telling me this was a natural thing and not something to be frightened of.

oisindoyle

Well you have to rememeber that the vast majority of children/teenagers are educated in catholic schools.So considering anything to do with sex is seen as dirty and sinful .
The changes are you are lucky to get even a qucik mention of the facts of life in a class.
Homosexuals dont exist in Catholic schools so thers no way lgbt issues will be discussed in these schools

azezil

The only "sex ed" I ever received was from my very embarrassed mother in the form of a pop up book at age 10. That was also the time she also told me there was no Santa She had to cut it short cause someone called to the door, the rest I had to learn from a from a friend at the age of 19!

TrollHammaren

No surprises here.

I went to an all-boy Catholic School and the Sex Ed in 6th class was an absolute joke. No mention of homosexuality, bisexuality, trans issues, or anything like it. I didn't know what a condom was for, other than "if you don't use it then you'll have babies and get AIDS", but this confused me as we were more or less convinced that extramarital sex also caused AIDS.

One guy brought up the topic of masturbation and the teacher, unsure what to say, said something along the lines of "it's usually a sign that there's something wrong with you; you're looking for comfort, like a baby sucking its thumb."

Another mate of mine is bisexual, and in school he was shown a video that basically insinuated that bisexuality causes AIDS.

I can only hope our school system has gotten past this stage.

KnifeWRENCH

We never had sex ed in primary school and only got very basic stuff in secondary school. No LGBT stuff mentioned at all in second level. And this wasn't a particularly religious school or anything, it just wasn't seen as a priority to educate on anything sexual, for some reason.

My only Sex Ed came from a Miriam Stoppard book my Dad gave me when I was 11; he just said "read it" and we never spoke of it again! :pac: Apart from that, everything I learned was either through the internet or biology class.

My Leaving Cert Biology teacher (who was a very young teacher subbing for our regular teacher, who was on maternity leave) was shocked when we told her how little sex ed we received. So she started talking to us about it after we studied the reproductive systems, and it was only at that point (nearly at the end of 6th year) that we ever got anything close to proper sex ed! I think she threw in an "and of course it's ok to be gay" line at some point.

Meesared

I kinda wish there had have been some LGBT related education in school as i think it would have ment it was a lot sooner when i got to grips with myself (still kinda am)