A Magic Ticket to Sexual Health and Happiness

Photo by Faiz Jafar on Reshot

You may now kiss the bride - and poof! You magically become a sexually knowledgeable and confident partner.

In my last blog, I made the case that sex ed is about so much MORE than sex. But, since then, I have had a new thought. Maybe sex ed shouldn’t be about MORE than sex, maybe it should be about everything BEFORE sex?

Traditionally, sex ed has been about body parts and how they work to make babies and transmit diseases. Though this still holds true in many parts of the world, in many other places, there is a growing understanding that anatomy and physiology are only a small part of sexual health, and so the curriculum has expanded to include other topics such as relationships, intimacy, consent, gender, identity and sexual orientation, just to name a few. So that’s the reason I say that it’s so much more than what we typically think of as sex education.

But even though the content of sex education has expanded, the end goal of sex education has pretty much remained the same: provide youth with the information and skills they need to avoid the negative consequences of being sexually active: unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections and abusive relationships. Our country has spent billions of dollars on sex education programs that have been proven ineffective in achieving these goals. I argue that maybe we have the wrong goals.

The goal of sex education should be to provide youth with the information and skills they need to be sexually healthy - throughout their lives. If we can achieve this at every age and stage of development, won’t adolescents be more likely to avoid the aforementioned negative consequences? But more importantly than avoiding the negative consequences of being sexually active, won’t they be more likely to achieve positive outcomes - healthy, engaging, pleasurable, equitable relationships (including sexual relationships). 

Each parent/caregiver can likely describe when they feel it’s OK for their children to have a healthy sexual life. For argument’s sake, let’s say it’s when their kid is married in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship. If adolescents have continually been told that their sexuality is wrong and bad, and that they should say no and abstain from all sexual activity until they are married in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship, then is there a switch that gets turned on when they say, “I do?” If the only information they’ve gotten is from friends and media, they have no idea how their body works, what feels pleasurable and safe, what it means to have a healthy relationship, or how to protect their boundaries or the boundaries of others, how can they possibly have a healthy sexual relationship with their spouse? Do the words “You may now kiss the bride” give you a ticket on a high speed train away from sexual shame and fear, to a place of excitement and curiosity? I’d like to know how that works. 

Sex education should be about discovering and loving who we are as a person, believing we have a valuable voice, knowing we deserve intimate friendships and relationships, and recognizing that everyone has a right to these exact same things. This is not just MORE than what is traditionally taught in sex it, it’s also everything that should be taught before sex. Achieving sexual health and well-being doesn’t take a magic ticket. It takes practice over time.

*I’m using a broad definition of the word sex here.