Sex education means teaching issues related to human sexuality, including relationships and emotional responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexual reproduction, age of consent, reproductive health, reproductive rights, safe sex, birth control and sexual abstinence. Sex education, which covers all these aspects, is known as holistic sex education. Commonly understood sex education pathways are parents or guardians, official school programs, and public health campaigns.
Traditionally, young people in many cultures have not received any information about sexual matters, and discussion of these matters was considered taboo. Such teaching, as was the case, was traditionally the responsibility of the child's parents, and this was often postponed just before the child entered into marriage. However, the progressive educational movement of the late 19th century led to the introduction of so-called "social hygiene" to North American curricula and the emergence of sex education in schools (Strasburger, Brown, 2014). Despite the early beginnings of sex education at school, most information on sexual issues in the mid-twentieth century was obtained informally from friends and the media, and most of this information was incomplete or of dubious usefulness.
According to the latest knowledge of psychologists and doctors, sexual education is extremaly useful for young people. It has its pros when it comes to mental health, sexual development, learning social skills and health generally (it can save from STDs!). Jayathma Wickramanayake (2019) says: Lack of information - along with a lack of hygiene products and a secluded place where they could use them - often leads to girls and young women not going to school during menstruation. Cultural taboos, prohibiting women and girls from being in public space (including places related to religion) during the period or forcing them to live outside of home at that time (even in very bad weather conditions), because they are then considered "unclean", deepening sense of shame and associated health risks. You can't blame young people for making bad decisions when they don't have access to information and adults refuse to answer them. And yet the young bear the consequences of these decisions, often bringing them suffering throughout the rest of their lives. I saw it with my own eyes: the girls who went to class with me when we were told that we were to "embrace" sexuality, soon after became pregnant, quit school and lost all chances of getting out of poverty. Enabling young people to make responsible decisions about their own body and sexuality requires providing comprehensive sex education for all in a friendly way for young people, respecting their agency and autonomy. This means creating safe places where they can get contraceptives and ask questions that bother them, without fear that their families or friends will find out. This message is contained in the new strategy for youth prepared by the UN Population Fund under the name "My body, my life, my world."
