Lets Talk: Sex Education

Many of you who live in the UK, and even those who don't, may be aware that a few days ago David Cameron rejected the movement for compulsory Sex Education in schools. Here are a few articles if you want to read up more on the matter but I wanted to pose a discussion on this blog because it's something that is extremely important to me as you may know from my post about periods.

Now, when I was in school, the Sex Education wasn't all that great, we covered the basics about periods, sex, STIs, pregnancy etc but it was nowhere near close to what I now realise that children and teenagers need to learn about. Making Sex Education compulsory might not make a huge difference but rejecting the idea completely will be extremely damaging to the youth of today. Take a moment to think about what you learnt in Sex Education when you were in school, then think about what you learnt about Sex Education, your body, etc in later life, by your own accord, and then think about what might happen when schools around the world just don't offer Sex Education.

These children may not have any idea what is normal for their bodies, the possibility of them having unsafe sex will increase significantly, teenagers and children who are too afraid to come out to their parents because they have no idea what anything means and why they're feeling the things they do. Hell, people my age are still confused about HIV/Aids and I'm eighteen. I'm going to compile a quick list of what is extremely important in a person's upbringing to do with Sex Education (disclaimer: this is just my opinion, and there are probably loads more that I can't think of right now):

• Puberty: incl. Periods, Sexual feelings, Changing bodies. 
• Sex: Safe sex defending against pregnancies and STI's incl. different forms of contraceptives.
• Mental Health: Anxiety, Eating Disorders, Depression, Everything incl. talks about removing stigma.
• LGBTQIA+: It's okay!, Explanations of different sexualities and genders, erasing stigma, sex.
• Sex Crimes, etc: Rape, Sexual Assault, Rape Culture, Victim blaming.

I'm not saying that the education needs to take over from maths, english, science or whatever, I'm just saying that it needs to happen, it needs to be offered, it needs to be compulsory, if it's not then I don't even want to think about the effects it can have in the future.