Sex education helps people gain the information, skills and motivation to make healthy decisions about sex and sexuality.
Sex education is high quality teaching and learning about a broad variety of topics related to sex and sexuality, exploring values and beliefs about those topics and gaining the skills that are needed to navigate relationships and manage one’s own sexual health.
Sex education is high quality teaching and learning about a broad variety of topics related to sex and sexuality, exploring values and beliefs about those topics and gaining the skills that are needed to navigate relationships and manage one’s own sexual health.
- Sex education, is any process dedicated to providing information about sexual techniques, practices, and health or human sexuality.
- There is a wide variety of examples of sex education. These include a parent explaining to his or her child where babies come from, a friend telling another friend about how to use a condom, or a teacher lecturing his or her students about the risks of sexually-transmitted diseases. Students in the United States often take sex education classes in middle or high school, and the content of these classes varies widely. Some schools may require parental permission before students can take sex education.
TYPES OF SEX EDUCATION
- Abstinence-only sex education teaches children to wait until they are either married or adults to engage in sexual relationships. Students learn the basic mechanics of sex, but do not typically get information on birth control or disease prevention; instead the psychological and physical risks of sex are emphasized, and teachers may discuss ways for students to say no to sex and avoid temptation to have sex. Several studies have demonstrated that abstinence-only education may not be effective and could even increase sexual risk-taking behavior because kids who take abstinence-only education do not know how to use condoms and other forms of sexual protection.
- Health and safety-oriented sex education is sex education that teaches students the mechanics of sex as well as basics of birth control and sexual consent. Students may receive lessons in choosing and using different forms of birth control. This form of sex education focuses primarily on physical well-being, and students who receive this type of education are generally better-equipped to protect themselves, but still might not be prepared for the emotional implications of having sex.
- Comprehensive sex education attempts to address both safety and emotional concerns regarding sex. Students might learn the basics of sexual negotiation and learning how to please a partner and might learn, for example, that many women require clitoral stimulation to orgasm. Comprehensive sex education may also address diverse sexual orientations. Comprehensive sex education is highly controversial, but generally shows the lowest rates of teen pregnancy and STDs, and students who receive it report that they are better-prepared for sex, whether they are waiting until marriage or not.
OBJECTIVES
(1) Sexual health education should focus on the total personality development of the individual. Sexual health education should seek the development of an individual’s sexuality and sexuality involves one’s total being and identity. In short, it includes physical, social and psychological aspects of sex and sexuality. It will also create the power to make value judgment.(2) Sexual health education should aim at providing factual, complete and honest information about sex and sexuality. Sexual health education programme should aim at increasing awareness and insight regarding physical, social and psychological development. It will help in clearing up myths and misinformation that young people share among themselves.It will also prepare the adolescents to face the biological changes that would come about during puberty such as menstruation, seminal emissions, change of voice, enlargement of breasts etc.(3) sexual health education will enable young people to become responsible in making decision. Sexual health education aims at helping individuals to acquire and maintain responsible and caring relationship and behaviour. Simultaneously, it will prepare the children to recognise the behaviour that is exploitative and self-destructive.(4) Sexual health education will help the child to respect (him/her) self and others. Sexual health education will enable young body and girls to become proud of their own sex while appreciating the attributes and capacities the opposite six.(5) Sexual health education will provide opportunity to youngsters to imbibe human values. Sexual health education will provide opportunity to the young people to develop ethical, social and spiritual values which will serve as a guide to the individual in persona, family and social relationships.(6) health education should help the young boys and girls to underhand that each part of the body and each phase of growth is good and has a purpose.This will give holistic idea about human development simultaneously it will help the young people to nurture feeling that sex is something beautiful, positive and is a creative of life.(7) Sexual health education should help in the formation of an emotionally stable personality. By developing various skills an individual will also become emotionally stable. Such an individual will be able to make rational decision and will have judicious thinking.
Why India Needs Sex Education
In a country that reports high rates of teenage pregnancies and sexual abuse, one would think that the need for a curriculum focusing on gender equality, the importance of consent, and boundaries, would not be a matter of debate.
The reality, however, is that sexuality education for adolescents is a highly controversial topic in India. It is seen as offensive to Indian values, and concerns that it might lead to risky sexual behaviour and promiscuity.
Take the reaction when the central government in 2007 announced the launch of the Adolescence Education Programme in schools, along with the NACO, NCERT and UN agencies. Thirteen states called for an immediate ban as they felt that comprehensive sexuality education was against the Indian culture. Little has changed in the last 10 years. There is still a ban on Adolescence Education Programme in at least five states across India, and there is no uniformity in the way the subject is approached.
Sexuality education, as the UNESCO defines it, “provides opportunities to… build decision-making, communication and risk reduction skills about many aspects of sexuality…. encompasses the full range of information, skills and values to enable young people to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights and to make decisions about their health and sexuality”.
“The myth is that everyone is going to talk about sex”, “It is about knowing your body, consent, interaction with the opposite sex, colleagues and friends,”.
Research shows that comprehensive sexuality education delays sexual initiation and leads to a fall in sexually transmitted diseases.
This is critical in a country like India where rates of sexual violence against women are high and discriminatory attitudes towards women persist. For a meaningful social change, reaching out to boys and girls on issues like consent and gender equality becomes critical.
Programs on the ground like Ehsaas by SNEHA in Mumbai and YP Foundation in Delhi, to name a few, are trying to plug those gaps.
