Sex Education

ailbheol

I'm doing a project on teenage pregnancy for sociology in college and i'd like to find out your opinions on the issue. i presume most of you have been through the irish education system. do you think that the sex education you received in school was adequate/suitable/helpful or non-existent/awkward or biological/religious only? do you think that good sex education in schools would do much to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy in ireland or do you think that girls and guys will continue to have unprotected sex and run the risk of becoming teenage parents regardless? thanks for your help

*Page*

the sex ed i got was a talk about tampons and st's..

nothing about sex or stds/stis

personaly i found it sh!t

Matthewthebig

I had sex ed in 6th class. it was a very basic thing "this is a penis, this is a vagina etc.."

We then a very shi.tty christian based sex ed thing in fourth year.

I'm in 5th now and we don't get the proper one until 6th year. Which tbh imo is ****ing ridiculous. People in my year have already lost the auld virginity. So its a bit late!

IMO it should be taught every year from first class up. becoming more and more detailed. ie in first class it could be telling you about your "bits" then by 1st year they could be progressing onto STIs, condoms etc!

seamus

Sex Ed in school was about 3 years too late. We got a "shock" talk in 4th year about stds and contraception and other crap. Should have been told about that in first/second year.

We got some sex ed in 6th class, but that was more a pre-teen chat - like the episode in the Simpsons where Bart's class watch a video about it.

The role that school should play is minimal anyway. 90% of a person's sexual education and sexual attitude should come from their parents IMO.

*Page*

i totally agree with seamus!but there are the rare cases.
some people can get quite embarassed in group situations...but some times its needed.
for example some guy in the mixed school near to where i live had been told by his parents you get a girl pregnant by putting your willy in her belly button. he was shocked and embarassed in 4th year when he found out they lied..

Zombrex

Personally I think Sex Ed is not working in Ireland because it doesn't give teenagers social methods to say they don't want sex or to say they want sex on their terms (ie with a condom) so kids feel pressure into have sex in ways they don't fully understand. There is no reason why 16 year olds should still be having unwanted kids. They are because they do feel confident to demand condom use on the part of their partners.

Kids switch off when you drum down STDs scares down their necks and basically tell them not to have sex. We need to face the facts that kids are having sex and find ways to talk to them about it so they feel confident that they can take methods to protect themselves but still have sex.

Ironically, to some, I think this is a failing of feminism.

Sleepy

I was lucky in that we'd a great religeon teacher in our school, a guy called Ciaran Doyle who instead of teaching religeon in leaving cert gave us a sylabus based around bringing in people from Cura, Alcoholics Anonymous etc.

He was one of those rare teachers that actually had a gift for it and could treat students as something of an equal while retaining their respect. As a result in addition to classes on STD's, contraception and dealing with unexpected pregnancy (in a single sex male school no less) there were also a few times when pretty frank discussions about attitudes to sex were discussed.

One of the great pieces of advice I remember him giving was "think about the way you guys even talk about sex. You talk about ****ing someone, doing something to them instead of with them". It made me think at the time and I like to think I've a pretty healthy attitude towards all things sexual and in part I think I'd have that teacher to thank for it.

Matthewthebig

Another problem imo is the price of condoms! They are still considered a luxory item in the eyes of the government. This is problem that I think should be addressed(sp?). if they were given out free or were at least cheaper, people would be more likely to carry them. In sex ed you should be given a free three pack to try out

Sleepy

It's funny actually. There's a youth café in Galway called The Gaf. My younger brother used to hang out there a lot and played a few gigs there. At one of the gigs, myself and my mother stayed around to listen to them play after I'd helped them set their gear up and on noticing a condom machine in the toilets (remember this is an under 18's only facility) my mother was shocked, whereas I was impressed with the common sense of having condoms available in a non-embaressing place for the kids to get them.

Matthewthebig

Exactly. there is a sort of stigma getting condoms. ie my ex didn't like to go into the chemist and purchase them.

Zombrex

I always though the arugment that condoms encourage sex, and therefore should not be show to kids, was rather silly .. yes condoms are not perfect, there is no such thing as safe sex, so kids shouldn't think I can have as much crazy sex as I like as long as I use a condom, but kids are having sex anyway and non-protected sex is a lot risker than sex with a condom.

It smacks more of burying head in sand ... if they don't have condoms they won't have sex ... nonsense

*Page*

you can get free condoms from well woman and well man centers!

Matthewthebig

Really? thats news to me. I think condoms do in a way encourage sex. but is it better to be enjoying yourself or being sexually frustrated and repressd

*Page*

sex isnt some that should be wrong! yes age limits are there for a very very good reason, but sex is a form of expression. now personaly i don't like the idea of radom sexual partners or one night stands every week/month ect,
sex shouldn't be frowned apon it makes it wrong(which it isn't) and to younger people will do something for the risk of getting caught.

Matthewthebig

The govenment have released a dvd for parents to help them talk about sex with their kids

DrIndy

Research has shown that teenagers who receive comprehensive sex education, lose their virginity later and also use contraception more fastidiously.

Education protects you from ignorance. My personal experience in Ireland were diabolical, there was NO sex ed at all, my religion teacher used to even skip over the parts on marriage when we were doing that course!!!

Luckily, I received something better when I went to secondary school in Scotland......

Zombrex

DrIndy wrote:

Research has shown that teenagers who receive comprehensive sex education, lose their virginity later and also use contraception more fastidiously.

Studies in the USA have shown that teenagers who were taught abstenance (sp?) tend to have sex later in life than those who weren't, but (and it is a big but) they were far far less likely to use protection when they did eventually have sex.

So really all abstenance teaching does is delay the problem for a bit and then produce people who know nothing about safer sex.

Sleepy

Is it not the same in anything in life? Ignorance (religeous or otherwise) is never the bliss it's sold as being...

Nevyn

Many many moons ago, more then I care to remember I was WRO in college.
Part of that remit was to orgainse and run safe sex ed classes.
It was ment to be a play safe talk and every single one that I ran turned into basic sex ed.
A lot of the purely basic phyical stuff is not covered nevermind, contrception
in it's many forms, respect and responiblilty.
The number of girls that would come freaked out cos they got trashed and had unsafe sex and where worred about being pregant was unreal.
Once they got the prenacy test over and done with they would asume the crissis was over and never stop to think that if they were at risk of pregnacy there were also at risk from hiv and sti.


By 5th and 6t hclass most 'kids' know roughly about how male and female gentials slot together and that is how babies can happen. The program that is in primary schools (which I have read cos thats where my kids are now) I would consider to be over casutious. I know there are many arguements about not frightening or scaring kids or taking away thier innocences but at that stage it is their own bodies that are changing and they need to know why.

By 2nd year in secondary school they should be dealing with the social aspect of sex. Peer pressure, saying no, personal standards, respect and trust.

For more years then not 15 was the age at which people got married settled down and took on the roles and responsibilites of adults. It is only less then a 100 year from this and while now we give young people longer to develope this
being pushed out even more so by the trend towards most young people attending 3rd level eduation , it is not a good reason to allow the ducking of personal responibiltes about thier own bodies.

As long as 9 out of 10 school in the country are run by the church or on church lands ( you can not teach or preach anything which goes against church doctrine on church land) we wotn have the much needed
posative reafirming health based sexuality programs that are much needed.

swiss

I remember learning about male and female genitalia and sexual intercourse long before sex education in 6th class. Up to this point what I knew about sex I had learned from a rather motley mixture of biology books and encyclopedias. While I had a basic knowledge of the process I had no context into which I could put this knowledge, and most certainly nothing about contraception or STD's. In fact during part of my childhood I learned that AIDS was transmitted through bodily fluids, and in my ignorance I was terrified that I would contract the condition through such innocuous activities as kissing, or less innocuous activities such as oral sex!

In secondary school, sexual education moved to a more thorough scientific analysis of the male and female reproductive system, again without a context for the situations in which sexual intercourse take place, with limited if any reference to contraceptive techniques (I think religion class covered those briefly in later years) and absolutely no education at any stage about alternate sexualities. The religious context of learning about contraception also meant that there was a certain ideology slant instead of a purely objective rigorous analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of various contraceptive measures. From my limited recollection I think that abstinence was the preferred contraceptive method.

The deficit of information about contraception, homosexuality and bisexuality, sexually transmitted diseases and infections, and sexual techniques was once again met by extra-curricular learning on my part. The Internet was a very good source of information, although it was, and is hard to identify if such information is accurate and impartial. Whatever else I learned I learned through practical experience, or through whatever information my mates imparted - and we all know how unbiased and accurate that information can be!

So in retrospect, the Irish educational system provided a good sexual education, if your definition of sexual education was educating children as to the physical properties and process of sex, gender and sexual intercourse. If that definition broadened in any way, it was sorely lacking.

ailbheol

thanks for your posts, the situation is much as i expected. i got feck all sex ed beyond JC biology and talks about periods and puberty until i was in 4th year. our school (all girls and with a nun for a principal) organised to have aids west in to talk to us and we got the best sex education i think it is possible to receive. the woman who talked to us was really frank and up front about everything and so it wasn't awkward or embarrassing at all. also she was an outsider of the school so we didn't feel as weird talking to her about all that stuff as we would have with our own teachers. we covered everything from aids and hiv to condoms and contraceptives to what different common sexual terms meant (69er, threesome etc) and we were given time to write questions down on pieces of paper for her to answer in discussion. but it seems that most people weren't as fortunate as me. now for my next question, do you think that there is a direct link between media influence and teenage pregnancy? we're talking sex and the city, friends, teenage mothers on soaps like eastenders and corronation st, babies being used in advertising and sex being used to sell everything. thanks for your help!

Sleepy

Ì'm sure a correlation would be easy to prove, however, whether the media has had a direct causal effect on teenage pregnancies I'd have my doubts. Remember, in Ireland at least, teenage pregnancies were very much swept under the carpet until relatively recently so any statistics on rising pregnancy rates are only going to be genuinely quantifiable from around the late 80's / early 90's.

I have been quite vocal a number of times about how much women as a group are influenced by the media. Teenage girls are particularly vulnerable to it's effects. SATC, and magazines like more, Heat, OK, Now, Cosmopolitan etc all seem to have a detrimental effect on womens self esteem and low self esteem tends to lead to a pretty poor decision making process when it comes to matters of sex.

[off-topic]Former student from the Hill on the Pill by any chance?[/off-topic]

ailbheol

Sleepy wrote:

[off-topic]Former student from the Hill on the Pill by any chance?[/off-topic]

I don't know what you mean by the Hill on the Pill, some secondary school i suppose. i live in galway but if that's a reference to Taylor's Hill i was in Salerno, their arch rival school. though i'm not denying that a few of our girls could have been on the pill. better on the pill than pregnant anyway we just had to choose a social issue to research for Sociology in my Social Studies PLC course and find an angle to take on it. i hypothesised that there could be a link between teenage pregnancy and irish culture and media influence, ie: tv, advertising, magazines, radio etc coupled with a teenage culture of drink, drugs, provocative music, clothing, dancing and underage and/or unprotected sex with virtual strangers, possibly due to a lack of sex education. as part of my research i thought it would be interesting to conduct an on-line survey of sorts to gather opinions.

Zombrex

Sleepy wrote:

Remember, in Ireland at least, teenage pregnancies were very much swept under the carpet until relatively recently so any statistics on rising pregnancy rates are only going to be genuinely quantifiable from around the late 80's / early 90's.

Good point .. despite the views of your average Gerry Ryan listener, teenage pregnancies have actually been falling over the last 50 years in Ireland. You just see more teens with kids these days because it is more socially acceptable to be seen out with your kid, where as in the old days it would have been hidden away.

Still, there is no reason why in this day and age kids should still be getting pregnent. Sex education has to step up to the plate and at least attempt to educate young people, other wise it will simply continue. Ignorance breeds more ignorance.

Sleepy

Yep Ailbheol it's an old nickname for Taylor's.

Hope you're getting what you were looking for anyway

simu

Sleepy wrote:

I have been quite vocal a number of times about how much women as a group are influenced by the media. Teenage girls are particularly vulnerable to it's effects. SATC, and magazines like more, Heat, OK, Now, Cosmopolitan etc all seem to have a detrimental effect on womens self esteem and low self esteem tends to lead to a pretty poor decision making process when it comes to matters of sex.

Most of those magazines are so far-removed from the reality of teenage life in Ireland that they're seen as escapism or something to laugh at by most teenage girls in my experience. The women in SATC are 30-something freaks worrying about their biological clocks - why would a 15 year-old relate to such a thing? Sure, maybe some girls do try to emulate the lifestyles presented in such items but I don't think there is a greater amount of such girls than the amount of teenage boys who get suckered by FHM/whatever TV show is trendy at the moment etc.

snappieT

Had very basic ed (surprising how much my teacher liked using the word "erect") that was crap. 2nd year led to further basics, and the changes undergone in boys during puberty. No more

5th year was a slide over the basic STDs, that was all.

The teacher in 2nd and 5th year was a religion teacher who was actually very cool about it, realised abstinence was not an option for most, but was still quite embarassed about the topic.

In my opinion, EVERY school should have a mandatory sex-ed teacher that comes in once a week for that class. In 6th class, a spanish teacher came into the school for 2 45min classes per week. I think the same should happen for sex-ed classes.

simu

snapscan1212p wrote:

In my opinion, EVERY school should have a mandatory sex-ed teacher that comes in once a week for that class. In 6th class, a spanish teacher came into the school for 2 45min classes per week. I think the same should happen for sex-ed classes.

Jeebus! Imagine the sexual skillz the kids would have after that. Actually, that's a bit creepy!

It's enough to cover it once or twice a year by having a seminar day and giving more detailed and relevant info out as the kids get older imo.

dahamsta

seamus wrote:

90% of a person's sexual education and sexual attitude should come from their parents IMO.

Although I'd agree with you mostly, I'd imagine there are a hell of a lot of parents who can't or even shouldn't be teaching their kids about sex.

adam

Zombrex

dahamsta wrote:

Although I'd agree with you mostly, I'd imagine there are a hell of a lot of parents who can't or even shouldn't be teaching their kids about sex.

adam

Agreed

It is irresponsible of society to leave something as important as sexual education up to parents. Fine, if parents really object they have a right to pull their kids out of sex ed class ("Ezekiel and Ishmael, in accordance with your parents wishes, you may go out into the hall and pray for our souls." ) just as they have the right to pull their kids out of any class. But to leave it up to, and assume that, parents are going to teach their kids about sex ed is stupid. You will get a whole load of kids who know nothing about sexual health.

I don't expect my dad to teach me what he knows about Reformation, or my mom to teach me all she knows about 18th century english poets.

orangerooster

The sex education we got was the woeful Religon book one all through secondary school, to make matters worse the teacher teaching it was an ex-nun. Contraception wasnt dealt with other than it being "against the ten commandments" pretty much all we were tought was this is a vagina this is a penis put them together and a child is born. Thank feck my parents have sense and filled me in before secondary school.