Let’s talk about sex
Elizabeth PisaniIt’s hard to know what goes on in other people’s relationships. But there is one point on which all of us can be certain: our parents had sex. Most of us, though, don’t want to imagine their amorous exploits, and most parents don’t care to spend much time thinking about the finer details of their children’s sex lives either. All of which makes the ongoing controversy about sex education in schools somewhat strange.
Children currently cover the technicalities of reproduction in science classes. But from 2011, 15 year olds will be given sex education, whether their parents like it or not, as part of a compulsory class teaching the basics of adult life. Personal, social, health and economic education (or PSHE—ugh!) covers the joys and pitfalls of relationships and sex, alongside internet safety, first aid, and the downsides of addiction and gangs. It will be part of the national curriculum from the age of five.
The problem is that parents will be able to pull their kids out until they are 15. That seems odd: if such education is important, why make it optional for most of a child’s schooling? Even more bafflingly, 30 per cent of adults tell pollsters that they think parents should be able to deny their kids access to sex eduction altogether. “Parents are the first educators of their children,” declared the Catholic Education Service of England and Wales. And yet the truth is that the “ick factor” of thinking about your children having sex makes parents peculiarly ill-suited as sex educators.
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