Do you feel like you were given the sex education you needed

Primary tabs

Comments

The hymen is a thin bit of tissue that wears away over time -- and much of it during puberty, whether you have sex or not, whether you were sexually assaulted or not. At 25, even if you had not had that experience as a child, much of your hymen would have worn away. Here's a link to fill you in on that: http://www.scarleteen.com/article/body/anatomy_pink_parts_female_sexual_...

And one more: http://www.scarleteen.com/article/advice/i_didnt_bleed_and_now_everyone_...

Editor & Founder, Scarleteen: Sex Ed for the Real World
Author, S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-to-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and Col

I was never taught in school about safe sex/risks/protection for lesbians and had to find out online. Also we didn't really learn anything about consensus and communication other than "it's okay to say no"

At our school we had our VERY first class at the END of 4th grade. The boys and girls were sepereated and had seperate classes that were based on their own bodies. Just the BASICS. Then we had a semester of HEALTH class (co-ed) from FIFTH grade thru EIGTH grade--each year getting a little bit more graphic/detailed. I think it was perfectly progressed and well-done. We were able to ask questions anonymously and weekly had segregated (girls/boys) sessions, were the female gym teacher would come "girl talk" with us and the male gym teacher would go "guy talk" with the guys....it was really laid back and AWESOME.

At my school we had a similar age range to start learning. First we had separated classes in fifth grade, then in sixth grade they were co-ed. It wasn't as detailed or as many years as yours was, but it was still good. Even so, I wish I had gotten your type of sex ed. It sounds the best way to go, especially with such a laid back environment.

i had ONE class in 5th grade,but it was only about puberty,wich i already knew all about.the rest i figured out like most people did.and is it normal to not have a health class until AFTER 7th grade,becuase 3 more days until 8th grade for me and still no health class.

I was given a disastrous "sex ed" by my mother when I was too young and uninterested. It was disastrous because it was all about "how procreation works, because I don't want to be the kind of mother who tells silly stories to their children when they're too young" (though I hadn't even asked where babies came from) and "how to use a condom". It was never about what sex is really all about, about sexual identity and freedom, about mutual respect, about feeling good about myself. It never was about "if you want to have sex" but, rather, about "when you will have sex, since you must have sex as everyone else does".

The sexual education I needed I got it late (but not too late to survive and move on), and I found it myself here, at Scarleteen.

I was given a puberty lesson in 5th grade, all about how when "sperm meets egg, it becomes an embryo, then a fetus, then a baby," but with no explanation of how that all actually happened. The lesson also included separate talks for boys and girls about breast growth, pubic hair, and deodorant (apparently the gym teachers had had enough). In ninth grade we were sat down for lessons about sex, some segregated by gender, some not. We learned about our anatomical parts. We learned about STDs, AIDS, and pregnancy, and how to prevent them, with the strong emphasis being on abstinence, but also talking about birth control, condoms, IUDs, etc, and no mention of abortion.

There was, as always, no discussion of the emotional side effects of sex. We all came out of that class reciting every possible symptom of herpes, but nothing about being pressured or doing the pressuring. No reasons to wait other than physical complications. No conversations of how emotionally attached sex makes you to another person.

As long as schools continue to preach on about pregnancy and disease, girls will continue to have sex -- maybe safe, protected sex, but sex nonetheless -- at much too young an age and without any knowledge of the emotional complications.

Amen. Bravo. Huzzah. Yipee. Woot. Can this be published on giant flyers in school boardrooms all over the world?

Same experience, same soul-sucking disjointedness, same confusion. They just don't give a damn, and we should make them.

Better yet, parents should actually have age-appropriate (ie since they know what information at which ages will be appropriate for the child, presumably) conversations with their children, not just get off with a "well we meant to..."

Without my parents (and the internet) i wouldn't have a clue about sex. i went to a convent school in england, the nuns lived at the bottom of the playground, and the teachers idea of sex ed was to show us a picture from a science text book showing the missionary position, telling us how babies were made, and then telling us how plants were fertilised. Thats right plants! I had better sex ed in primary school.

I figured my mom would decide when to have the Talk, but it didn't happen. By the time I was starting to wonder if she ever would, I had already looked up porn out of curiosity and figured out the basics of sex, and just asked her about sex like I had no idea, to get it out of the way. I got the reproduction and puberty info around 4th grade from textbooks, and a book for girls going through puberty that I picked up on a whim. I'd say that was okay, the way it was handled at the time. The information I got in high school wasn't any more detailed than elementary stuff, except with abstinence-ed added in, and was woefully inadequate. The more in depth stuff needed to actually have a healthy and safe relationship - I had to seek that out on my own later in life, and got it through the internet. I do wish I had known about Scarleteen then; it would've saved me a lot of shame.

I went to many different schools (We moved a lot) so although I had a large variety of different teachings, I never got the education I felt I needed. We covered STD's, the male and female organs, but never how to actually be safe. How to use a condom, what safety options there were (like plan B, birth control, etc.) and left everything up to the student because they were afraid parents would get upset with teaching the students too much. I had sex for the first time at 19, my partner was 18, and neither of us knew how to use a condom. We read the box, put the first one on wrong, put a new one on, and when he put it in I had no idea what to expect, and it hurt so bad that I became embarrassed. I thought sex was supposed to be some magical thing that everyone enjoyed right off the bat. We tried again a few days later, struggled again with the condom, and it ended up slipping off of him entirely about half way through. Then there was a pregnancy scare and it was just a mess. If parents won't be open to their kids about sex then there should be more help in schools. No one should be deprived of this kind of information.

As someone who is probably demisexual or asexual, my sex ed was pretty lacking, mostly because demi and ace weren't even options. I spent far too many years "waiting for puberty to kick in and make me boy crazy". Seriously, even a throw away comment like, "some people just don't want sex" would have been so valuable to me.

Add new comment

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.