Let's talk about sex ed

Between Jamie Lynn Spears and "Juno," teen pregnancy gets a lot of press these days. The discussion - or really, gossip - that stems from this tends to focus on the future: Will she keep the baby? Will she and the father get married? And who is the father, anyway? The conversation rarely strays back to the past and to why these girls didn't use contraception. These nitty-gritty details aren't available for the tabloids, so we tend to overlook them. But the fact that teenagers are getting pregnant ought to make us wonder if maybe there might be a reason. Instead of lamenting the stupidity, irresponsibility and rebelliousness of teenagers, let's talk sex ed.

We still hear about the occasional eighth grader or high school student getting pregnant, so clearly something's not going quite right. Pre-college sex ed comes in a variety of forms. Some people had it as early as sixth grade, others didn't start until high school, and still others don't have it at all. Some people have sex ed once and then the topic disappears; others have it continuously throughout middle school and high school. Some schools teach abstinence only; others attempt to scare kids out of having sex by emphasizing the consequences and showing pictures of STIs, the sight of which has been known to induce vomiting and at least temporary celibacy.  

But which of these methods is the "right" one? If you start late, you run the risk of people thinking they already know everything and tuning out potentially useful information. My friend Angela didn't have sex ed until her sophomore year, by which point, "a lot of us already knew about sex, condoms, STDs etc," she said. On the other hand, if people are listening, sex ed "functions as ... the real stuff versus the hearsay," another friend told me. By high school, even if people don't know anything about sex, they'll pretend they do because by then it's a taboo subject, something that can only be discussed in whispers punctuated by giggles. Discussing it aloud just makes it awkward.

On the other hand, if you start sex ed too early, then you run the risk of kids not getting it. Lots of 9 or 10 year olds don't have any concept of sex, so telling them about the possible consequences of it is going to mean nothing. Nonetheless, I think starting it earlier is the way to go. The taboo of sex comes about because it's something that is seen as an inappropriate subject matter by society. By starting sex ed around fifth grade, you get in before this stigma starts to form, and you make sex into an acceptable topic of conversation. Kids who have heard about it from an early age won't see it as gross and icky; they'll learn to see it as a part of daily life, which is what it is. Then, sex ed should be repeated every other year or so, or maybe every year. Dealing with sex is a part of growing up, and it ought to be a continuous discussion. As kids begin to brush up against the reality of sex, the conversation will shift away from basic anatomy and mechanics to a more personal level.  

Due to the wide disparities in sex ed experiences, our classmates come to college with varying amounts of knowledge about sex. Some have older siblings and have known the intimate details forever; some went to schools that taught them nothing about sex except that they shouldn't have it; some fall in the middle of the spectrum. Problems occur when people have only half the story, but think they know it all. A friend of mine told me that she came out of high school sex ed with little more than the idea that "penises look funny." Clearly, there is the need for some knowledge. That's why Princeton should have some sort of program during freshman year that talks about the basics of sex: the necessity of contraception if you're having sex, how to use contraception, where to get it, and so on. It's an issue that starts to come up a lot more in college, and it's essential that everyone have some basic knowledge of it. Though we have "Sex on a Saturday Night" and Sexual Health Advisers, all these seem to assume that people are already having sex. But some people aren't. Frosh sex ed could be done through an online program like AlcoholEDU, except actually mandatory. Alternatively, the University could have a program during frosh week. Either way, it's essential that students begin college familiar with the issue.

 

Alexis Levinson is a sophomore from Los Angeles, Calif. She can be reached at arlevins@princeton.edu.