Sex education is more than just knowing about sexual intercourse. It is also about making adolescents understand how their body works, educating them about consent, contraceptive measures, sexual health, the psychology of intimacy and a lot many aspects including making wiser decisions in their sex lives. It is so important to have frequent and open conversations with young, growing teenagers about the “uncomfortable” topic, which is only a very natural part of our lives. But that hardly ever happens because of the social stigma surrounding the topic of sex and sexual health. No adults, neither the parents, the school, the teachers nor do the government or social/political leaders take the responsibility and initiative to make sure these teenagers are well informed about the sexual aspect of their lives.
In reality, all the sex talk only ever happens outside the classroom, where teenagers often get misinformed. They depend on what their peers tell them, which is often inappropriate and exploiting information. Not having access to proper information and the lack of enough open conversations around this topic, makes them turn to the internet, which is often explicit pornography. But this exposes the young minds to unrealistic fantasies and leads them to have false expectations from their sex lives which results in harmful and irresponsible sexual behaviour, including rape and violence. Thus, quality sexual education is very much necessary for young adults to value consent and make judicious decisions.
Lack of proper sex education is even more impactful for girls as they are the ones who are at risk of getting pregnant and carrying an unwanted child, if not made aware of contraceptive options. They are the ones at a higher risk of facing violence and non-consensual sex. It’s sad to see that so many teenage girls don’t even understand the concept of consent and become a victim of forced sex not even knowing that any kind of forced sex is rape which unacceptable and not at all their fault! Educating teens about sexual health, reproductive health and making them familiar with how their body works, will make them feel empowered and more confident.
Teenagers go through a lot of physical, mental and emotional changes during puberty, and they must be told that it’s normal. It’s important to talk about the changes they’re going through and inform and educate them more about it. Young teens must be well-equipped with knowledge and have support so that no young individuals face extreme consequences and find themselves alone, pregnant, scared or ashamed.
Every adolescent deserves to be informed about their bodies, their sexual health and their sexual lives so that everyone can make wise choices and decisions for themselves and their partners.
